


Where do dragons go when they die

by Kiiyoshi



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Djeeta is as OP as the gameplay makes her out to be, F/M, Siegfried is no longer human, Takes place after the end of the main storyline, and the captain never leaves behind unfinished business, dragon blood is a hell of a drug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2020-10-28 23:02:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20786495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiiyoshi/pseuds/Kiiyoshi
Summary: "It's a little embarrassing, but I thought you were someone... or someplace unattainable," she told him one summer night. "I didn't know if I wanted to stand where you once stood, or that maybe I just wanted to keep on living with you."She smiled at him then. "So even if you run away from this, I'll find you. No matter where you go or how far you fall, I'll find you again."He didn't deny her at the time. She was always one to hide the true edge of her determination behind sweetness, and he was just another fool to underestimate it.





	1. Chapter 1

_ Where do dragons go when they die? _

_ If I were to return to the place we cherished so deeply in our dreams, will it be you that I find, standing on the edge of eternity? _

———————

When Djeeta woke up that morning, the first thing she did was welcome the clear blue sky. When she ascended the towering cliffs of the Howling Valley, she admired the deep green forests below as she filled her lungs with summer air.

Now as she went hurtling from the top of a mountain, she reflected on the series of decisions that brought her here.

Following her sense of adventure and the dreams of a spry childhood, she found herself on Feendrache, a country leagues away from her homeland. According to the tour guide, the island was known for its verdant cliffs and rolling hills. According to the locals, there was no need for a tour guide when they didn’t get many visitors save for her.

But she didn’t come here to be a tourist—true, she didn’t have an end goal in mind when she departed Zinkenstill, but that didn’t mean she crossed the sky without purpose. There were some things one could only gain through travelling and meeting new people—someone told her that once, and while she would’ve departed on her own journey sooner or later anyway, the words she held close to her heart brought her here.

But perhaps this was the wrong place to be, or perhaps she didn’t think things out quite thoroughly and that childhood dream was better left in the past. Perhaps she should’ve bought her souvenir and left for the next island, or perhaps she shouldn’t have stepped in, swearing to defeat the black dragon whose shadow plagued the kingdom every half century.

She’d fought both monsters and people alike, that was what her sense of adventure got her, but it wasn’t until now that she faced a true dragon with nothing but a single sword between them. Steel paled against plates of gleaming obsidian, armor useless against fire and fangs that could pierce through metal like paper. 

Looking into the dragon’s eyes, not once had she faced such a deep darkness full of hatred and fury.

But even as pitch black wings eclipsed the sun, she didn’t run. Even as she faced eyes of hate and ash and smoke, she didn’t run. Even as the true dragon sent her tumbling to the valleys below with a roar that threatened to split the sky and her heart, she didn’t run.

——————

Djeeta wasn’t sure how long she’d been falling. 

The ground she hit was wet and soft, but not soft enough to keep the wind in her lungs, and before she could muster a grip or catch a breath, she continued rolling until she was in the air again—was this the edge of the island? Was she really going to end up at the bottom of the sky instead of in a dragon’s belly?

Neither were preferable, but from here there was no where else to go but down. 

Eventually, she met the ground a second time, greeted with a mouthful of dust and dirt and alive enough to be disgusted about it.

Groping about while her head swam, she took a good moment to blink the stars from her eyes so she could finally get a sense of where she was and what was up and down. The fact she could still feel all four of her limbs was a nice bonus, and nothing about her seemed broken. As of yet.

When she was certain her breakfast wasn’t going to be coming up anytime soon, she looked about to find herself in a cavern of sorts. Sunlight filtered in through the same fissure she must’ve fallen through, its light the image of a thunderbolt burned bright in a pitch-black sky. The way back up was steep.

Stumbling to her feet, Djeeta immediately scanned the rest of the cave for an easier way out before she stopped in her tracks.

She wasn’t alone.

A person—or something that looked like a person—stood motionless across from her on the other side of the cave. She waved, but the figure didn’t wave back.

“Hello?”

With no answer, Djeeta figured it was just an empty suit of armor or even a corpse, but would a corpse be standing on its own? This wouldn’t be the first dead body she’s encountered during her journey, but finding human remains in unexpected places usually didn’t bode well for the traveler. 

As she got closer, Djeeta realized the corpse wasn’t standing, but pinned to the wall by what seemed like a sword protruding from its—his? Chest. He must’ve been a knight while alive, or at least he looked like one, armored in black plating with tattered robes wrapped around his neck like a scarf. The hair that framed his face in tousled waves was a deep brown, soft and silky like it were just shampooed yesterday, and it took Djeeta more strength than what was considered acceptable to resist touching it.

However, what stood out to her the most was the face with features that she could only describe as gentle and even handsome—his skin was a light, healthy tan, eyes closed in a way that would suggest he was only sleeping if it weren’t for the sword so clearly impaling him.

“What are you doing all the way down here?” She murmured as she leaned in for an even closer look, hands clasped behind her back. If she made it out of here alive, she could ask the townspeople if he had been one of their own, but who put him down here in the first place? 

A distant roar snapped her back to attention, reminding her of the situation at hand. She needed to make a decision.

Rolling over wasn’t her style. If she fought, even bare-handedly, at least she’d have something she could be proud of as her series of poor decisions sent her tumbling into the Otherworld like they sent her into the fissure.

Djeeta spared the knight another glance as she felt up the cave wall in the semi-darkness. Even if he was already dead, it didn’t feel right to leave him down here where he could be discovered by the true dragon and eaten, or did dragons prefer their meat fresh? She shook her head.

“I’ll survive then,” she said, finding her strength returning. “Then we can get you out of here too.” 

Another roar, and a shower of rocks pelted the spot Djeeta had just landed moments earlier as a shadow eclipsed what little sunlight streamed in. Cursing, she threw herself against the opposing wall—feet from where the knight was pinned—but the dragon had already picked up her scent as it began clawing at the fissure, the stench of sulfur filling the crag.

She lost her sword on the way down and there was no where for her to run. Short of giving up, the decision had already been made.

Grabbing a particularly sharp rock while dodging the ones sailing through the air, Djeeta tried her best to dig her heels in where she could. She hated the way her knees shook, but the dragon wasn’t going to just keel over and defeat itself. 

“What are you doing?”

Djeeta clenched her fists. “I’m going to fight—” She stopped so suddenly, she almost fell over before whirling around as her mind went blank from shock.

There was no way she didn’t imagine it—she swore he was dead, but the knight remained where he was, eyes the color of molten gold cutting into her like the rock trapped in her fist.

“You’re not—”

“No time for that,” he said sharply but not impatiently. Dust fell from the joints in his armor as he tried to separate himself from the wall, visibly wincing when the blade kept him pinned. “Sorry, but could you…?”

Her attention straying, Djeeta didn’t duck fast enough to avoid another rock, its edge tearing a gash in her shoulder. She bit back a cry then, rolling to the side.

The knight clicked his tongue sharply as he struggled harder, face twisting in pain. “You said you’d get me out of here, didn’t you? Or are we both dying here?”

Djeeta grimaced, hand still clasped to the wound. “Who are you?”

The knight matched her expression. “I’m not your enemy.”

A deafening screech—sparks and ash filled the air as the dragon slid into the gorge it carved out of the earth, all four sets of claws leaving their gashes in the wallside. It turned its hateful gaze on them both, embers igniting in the back of its throat.

“Hurry!”

Clenching her teeth, Djeeta summoned half of her remaining strength to her legs as she launched herself back towards the knight, the other half to her arms as she pulled on the sword with all her might.

Its handle dissolved in her grip, turning to dust as the steel beneath cut into her palms. Bracing against the wall, she wrapped her hands tighter even as blood dribbled up to her elbow. She could feel the dragon’s breath on her back before the blade finally gave, and she tore the last of its length out with a cry.

She was on the ground before she knew it, the knight and sword no longer where they were a split second before. There was another inhuman screech, and Djeeta turned her head to find him leaping towards the dragon, the steel that once impaled him finding home in his grip, gleaming red with her, or maybe his own blood. 

It was captivating.

He moved unlike any warrior she’d ever seen, his steps quick and weightless despite the armor he wore, his blows carrying the strength of a hundred or more soldiers. Djeeta watched in awe as he side-stepped the dragon’s claws with practiced motions, its tail and maw too sluggish to even hope of catching him.

The black dragon lunged at him then, the same attacks that pushed Djeeta to the edge now clumsy and sloppy against the knight that evaded them with ease. Using the dragon’s arm as his stepping stone, the knight scaled its height in seconds before plunging the sword deep into its eye. Its deafening roar shook the entire cave, sending her back down to the ground with her hands clamped to her ears. 

Utter silence, and the dragon careened from that single blow.

Djeeta braced herself for the shockwave of dust and debris. When the air cleared, the knight stood where it fell with his foot planted on its neck, not a single scratch or drop of his own blood on his person. She shuddered.

As she debated wildly whether it was safe for her to move or not, a moment stretched between them before he turned towards her. When their eyes met, she was back to clinging to the side of the mountain for dear life again, the gaze of the dragon piercing her as he stepped closer, armor clinking.

_ Don’t run_.

He lifted a hand, the tips of his gauntlets curved and pointed like talons. “Your shoulder and hands, we should get those treated as soon… as soon as…” He paused and faltered, bringing his hand to his brow as he too began to sway on the spot.

She snapped out of it as he stumbled. Djeeta didn’t think she had any strength left to close the distance between them and catch him, but she did and the knight landed in her arms, bringing them both to the ground.

_ Ah— _

Chest hammering, she held her hand to his parted lips, relief washing over her when she felt his breath on her blood-slick wrist. Despite everything, he looked just as peaceful as he did when she first found him, eyes closed like he were simply sleeping again—the situation was so ridiculous she could almost laugh if she wasn’t still reeling from what just took place.

Who in the world could defeat a dragon and then take a nap right afterwards?

———————

He was met with warmth and a clear, endless blue, and for what felt like hours, he couldn’t bring himself to look away. His thoughts were just as empty as the sky before him, and he wanted nothing more than to remain here—looking where there was nothing to be found, feeling when there was nothing left for him to feel.

But the world would not have it.

“You’re awake!” Somebody leaned over him, casting him in shadow as he startled, only remembering a second later what brought him here in the first place.

“Sorry,” the source of the voice hastily apologized, leaning back to the side. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Siegfried winced as he fought against the invisible ropes binding his limbs, finding barely enough strength to sit up before the stranger scrambled to help him the rest of the way.

She was a young woman, older than a teenager, but not yet settled into the throes of adulthood by the look of the light in her honeyed brown eyes. The worry in her gaze was a far cry from the fear he saw before passing out, and he wondered what it was she was so afraid of as he stood over Fafnir’s body.

_ Fafnir? _He winced again, bringing a hand to his head. That wasn’t right. Fafnir was gone, wasn’t he? 

“I’ll get you some water, can you lie back down?”

He wanted to ask her what became of the dragon, but there were too many things he didn’t know, too many other things he wanted to ask, and the words lodged themselves in his throat in their hurry to escape. She took his silence for compliance and gently laid him back down before hurrying out of sight.

Siegfried turned his eyes back to the sky, thoughts no longer empty with the pain in his chest beating against his ribs. The stranger was young, dressed in a skyfarer’s clothes of some island foreign to even him, and the slender arms that had supported his back belied the years of experience holding a weapon, maybe a sword. The resemblance between her and the captain was uncanny, but as he recalled her face, he couldn’t help but remember now.

The captain was dead.

The young woman returned shortly, offering him a hollowed out gourd filled with water which he quietly accepted after helping himself up a second time. 

Lifting it to his lips, Siegfried paused as he felt her gazing intently at him.

“Something on my face?”

She shook her head, eyes never leaving him. “No. Don’t mind me.”

He shrugged then and moved to take the first sip. The water was sweeter and wetter than what he’d expect of a dream and before he knew it, the gourd was empty with the remnants of its contents dripping from his chin.

“I’ll get more—” she turned to leave, but Siegfried grabbed her wrist before quickly letting go. It wasn’t proper for him to grab a stranger bent on helping him, but his body seemed to enjoy moving as it pleased now that it was free of its prison.

“Thank you,” he said, coughing the raspiness from his throat. “I apologize for the trouble.”

For some reason, she looked relieved as she settled back down. “Trouble?” She asked, the smile in her words reminding him of the ache in his chest. “You _ are _ the one who saved me.”

Siegfried deigned it unnecessary to remind her that she pulled the sword out of him first. They would’ve been even, but she took it upon herself to somehow drag him out of that hole in the earth.

_ It’s what the captain would’ve done_.

_ But she’s not the captain_, he reminded himself. 

“Your hands.”

“Um?” She quickly hid them behind her back, sheepish.

“You hurt them, didn’t you?” He beckoned her to procure them again. “Your shoulder too—this isn’t how you properly dress a wound. Do you have a kit?”

Thankfully for the two of them, the young woman seemed to have enough sense to fetch a medical kit, albeit embarrassed all the same.

“You don’t have to…” she mumbled halfheartedly as he began peeling away the bandages from her right hand first. “It’s not that bad.”

“It could be,” he replied gently enough in hopes of making up for his lack of decorum. "A swordsman needs to take better care of their hands."

She was quiet for a moment and Siegfried wondered what was there to consider. “If you insist.” She paused again as he began searching through the kit for swabs and medicine. “I just thought I’d get treatment from the town, but…”

“But you were stuck here taking care of me, I get it,” he said, smiling despite himself. “This will sting a little.” 

He felt her brace herself in his grasp as he swabbed the gashes with medicine, but it was a small feat to clean her up.

Tossing aside the soiled cotton, Siegfried felt her eyes on him again, and he took it upon himself to wrap her hands slowly so she could pick up on the proper technique. It was strange for a lone traveler not to know basic first aid, but it wasn’t like he knew anything about her situation either.

“What’s your name?”

The question seemed to catch her off guard. If he hadn’t been holding her hands, he would’ve missed it.

“My name? Um, my name…” she hummed for a moment as if to recall something she’d forgotten. “It’s Djeeta.”

_ Ah. _

His hands continued moving even though everything else about him stopped. This was how it was then. Just another dream, another darkness. Another once-upon-a-time, another if-things-had-been-different. He couldn’t deny the resemblance, but to share a name was too much for him to accept.

Eyes fixated on the work before him as his hands continued to move in mechanical motions, the open skies never felt further even though he remained rooted to the spot.

_ No matter how many dreams you have, each feels as real as the one before. _

“You… recognize it, right?” The young woman—Djeeta said, leaning down so that he could no longer avoid her gaze. “I mean, it’s a pretty common name across the skies.”

“Is it now?” He managed.

“Why wouldn’t it? Especially here,” she answered, smiling in a way like she were explaining the obvious. “I was named after the great hero who saved the skies tenfold. Here, she was the hero who sealed away the True Dragon Siegfried.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My original intentions for this work were to publish the first chapter only after I finished drafting the entire thing, but I decided to get a head start on the SIEGFRIED event that's about to drop in less than a day. This was originally canon-compliant, but now I can no longer guarantee that. I'll be doing my best to adjust what's already been written, but I apologize in advance for any divergence from canon.
> 
> I hope you've enjoyed it so far!


	2. Chapter 2

“Siggy is… quite the name.”

Siegfried offered her a slight smile as they walked side by side, Djeeta noticeably jogging every few steps to keep up with him. “You don’t think it suits me?”

She wrinkled her nose a bit. “I didn’t say that,” she said. “It’s just not something I would’ve guessed, that’s all.”

It was the first thing that came to mind after she asked for his name. Spending a good amount of time on the run should’ve taught him a thing or two about cover identities, but he usually opted for silence in the past and it worked out well enough. However, the situation on hand was a little different.

According to her timeline, he had been asleep for two hundred years, but this Djeeta wasn’t privy to that information, nor did she need to be. The fact that the True Dragon Siegfried would return every fifty years to terrorize the land would be perfectly believable given what he knew of dragons, except for the minor, undeniable detail that _ he _ was Siegfried, and _ he _was the one who stabbed the dragon in the eye. 

Needless to say, telling her his true name warranted an explanation even he wasn’t too sure of.

“That’s all I know really,” Djeeta had said, eyes downcast. “I’m not from around here either. I was told that when the Great Hero’s seal weakens, True Dragon Siegfried wakes and is either appeased or sealed away again.”

“So a sacrifice or a hero,” he replied.

“I suppose so.”

“Which were you, then?”

“I guess that depends on what we find, doesn’t it?” Apparently she could be cheeky too.

As he suspected, the black dragon was nowhere to be seen when they arrived at the cavern that served as his prison for the last two centuries, and nothing remained of their fight save for the scattered boulders and blood caked to the ground. He warned her not to touch it.

“Is dragon blood poisonous?” She asked him, crouching to poke at the bloodied dirt with a stick.

“Nothing good comes of it, that’s all,” he replied.

They returned to the nearest village to ask anyone if they had seen any signs of the dragon, to which no, they haven’t. No news was good news, but Siegfried couldn’t shake the uneasiness brewing in his core, nor the sense of dissociation from walking through a town unrecognized where he was previously hailed as a hero. It was both jarring and liberating to be a stranger in a place he once considered his home where “Dragonslayer” and “Kingslayer” no longer meant much of anything, to hear his own name when they spoke of the black dragon, and to hear the captain’s when she was no longer of this world.

Again, it was as if he woke within another dream, but he can only do now what he'd done a hundred times before—walk.

“Not sure what to make of it,” Djeeta said after they exhausted their last lead—if they could even call it that. “But if it worked, Siegfried would still be down there, wouldn’t he?”

“It’s because I did a sloppy job,” he told her, taking note of the man who had been tailing them ever since they set foot in town—a problem he could address later. “So I’ll take care of it and report it to the king myself. You're free to go home.”

Her glare immediately told him he said something he shouldn’t have. 

“How can you say that when I’ve been walking around with you and asking the same people as you this past hour,” she demanded loudly while a few passerby stopped to stare. “I don't even have any money left, and you want to somehow send me straight back to Zinkenstill?”

He would ask what kind of traveler would travel without money, but he realized he was in that same boat when he pat himself where he usually carried his rupie pouch. That aside, however—

“How did you get here then?” Never mind _ why_.

Djeeta stared at her bandaged hands. “I did odd jobs as a skyfarer. But, well.”

She didn’t have to say anything more as he got the idea. Leaving her stranded in a foreign land when the closest healers were in the capital was hardly an option when he was the reason she hurt herself in the first place. “By yourself?”

“There were others sometimes,” she answered, folding her hands behind her back. “But we would always go our separate ways at one point or another. Feendrache doesn’t get many visitors from the outside, I don’t think.”

It was the same as he remembered. “What brought you here from across the skydom, then?”

She was quiet long enough for him to wonder if she was ignoring him, but she eventually spoke. “I’m looking for something, or someone… I think.”

If she was interested in telling him who or what, then she would’ve, so Siegfried decided to leave it at that before he pointed her to the other side of the shop to ask around. When the man changed pace to tail after her, he took the opportunity.

“Following a girl through a crowded village might make you seem a little suspicious, you know.”

He let out something that was between a squawk and a squeak, but the hand on the back of his collar kept him from running. “It’s not—that’s not—”

“Oh? Then correct me.”

The other seemed to shrink beneath his shadow. “We-we just need to know what became of the black dragon.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Well, you won’t find him here.”

He sputtered, tugging on his iron grip. “T-that’s not it! The black dragon’s ritual ends through battle or sacrifice, so we… we didn’t think the girl would make it out so soon with barely a scratch.”

Siegfried dropped him, suddenly feeling much less merciful. “Then your masters intended for her to be a sacrifice.”

“T-that was up to her ability,” he said, rubbing where the collar of his tunic dug into his neck. Siegfried almost applauded his audacity. “Of course you're too young to realize, but a single life is a small price to pay for a half century of peace.”

If he could laugh, then he would’ve. The man opened his mouth to offer another retort, but Siegfried silenced him with a glare before he could even manage another word. What world was he in that the kingdom he swore to protect would stoop so low? To throw young life into the maw of the beast and pray for the best?

_ “Don’t lie_.” A voice not unlike his own, something sharp dragging down the length of his back. “_Did you think that day never happened?” _

Sensing his momentary distraction, the man made a run for it and he let him go. He would tell his masters whatever they needed to hear, and there was nobody left in this kingdom that would recognize him anyway. 

He paused. 

As the realization sunk in, his body stopped while the bustle of the crowd dissolved into a rush of water in his ears. He felt like a stone in a river then, unmoving amidst the villagers that passed him by. Lancelot, Vane, Percival—they left this world while he spent the years sleeping, never knowing what became of them, or they of him. 

“Siggy?” 

Her voice brought him a moment of clarity, and he half-expected to find the captain tugging on his arm, smiling as she usually did when she gently scolded him for daydreaming when they could be having another round of swords instead.

It was Djeeta who gazed up at him with concern, hand resting on his arm. Nobody else seemed to pay them any mind, and the man from before was no longer in sight. “What’s wrong?”

It took him a moment to find his voice again. What did he usually say when he didn’t want the captain to worry? And just how often did he manage to fool her? “Just spacing out, that’s all.”

She frowned. “I…” He could tell she wanted to say something, but she seemed to think better of it before taking her hand away. “You _ are _ still recovering. Why don’t we go back?”

He offered her another smile even if it didn’t quite reach his eyes this time around. “Sorry, but there’s something else I want to try. Can you bear with me a little longer?”

———————

It had been a day since they met for the first time, and Djeeta still wasn’t sure what to make of the knight. At times he spoke to her like she was a child, other times like they’d known each other for years. Sometimes, he wouldn’t even look at her at all, and that was when she’d take the moment to grow familiar with the image of his back and the way he carried himself.

“You don’t have to do this. You should find a warm bed for yourself.”

“I’m not the one who needs it,” she told him, stopping herself for the second time from asking how long he had been in that cavern. There were a lot of things she wanted to ask, but remembering the faraway look in his eyes always stopped the words in her throat. 

So they continued to travel together, Siggy earning them both a ride to the capital after offering to be the driver’s pack mule. However, they hadn’t even been on the road for an hour when the driver slowed the carriage to a stop, calling over his shoulder, “This is it.”

Djeeta frowned. As far as she knew, they still had the rest of the forest to cross before reaching town. “This wasn’t what we agreed—”

“This is fine, thank you,” Siggy said, bowing his head as he began to climb out of the carriage. Djeeta glanced between him and the red-nosed driver, but there wasn’t much room to argue when he was waving at her to get out as well.

“But you carried his entire caravan,” she said after the carriage rode off, leaving them both in a cloud of dust. 

“If it wasn’t something I could do, then I wouldn’t have done it,” he told her. “Anyway, you shouldn’t be holding a sword, but you shouldn’t be walking around this area unarmed either.”

Before she could ask what he meant by that, he procured a slender blade and handed it to her by the cross-guard, taking out a second which he tied to his waist.

“Oh! When did you...” she trailed off, distracted by the weapon’s glimmer as she balanced it in her hand.

Siggy said nothing, offering her a fleeting smile before turning on his heels to lead the way deeper into the forest. Gazing upon his back for the countless time that day, her chest couldn’t help but swell as she quietly remembered the way he slowly wrapped her hands. The grip fit perfectly against her palm.

Djeeta still didn’t know what to make of him as the day began to wane, but it was the warmth that carried her forward, and it was the warmth that brought her to his side. Maybe she imagined the way his eyes seemed to kindle too, but for now, perhaps that was enough. 

———————

At every hint of danger, Siegfried would instinctively reach over his shoulder only to remember he no longer had his greatsword on him. He considered the weapon that saw him through the fall of Fafnir and everything that followed after as a lifelong partner, so it came as no surprise when its absence continued to eat at him.

The swords he re-purposed from the tightfisted merchant paled greatly in comparison, but that didn’t stop Djeeta’s face from lighting up when she took the one he offered her, treating it like it were made of the finest steel. He made sure to pick something that would be kinder on her handicap, but he didn’t expect her to be this happy about a weapon he considered mediocre at best. Either way, if she was satisfied, then that was good enough for him. He continued forward.

It wasn’t too long before they reached a clearing flanked by the drop-off where Feendrache’s river cut through the gorge below. Djeeta was quiet for most of the trip, only straying from behind him to look over the edge where the water met the shore.

Siegfried came to a stop too. He had passed this way countless times during his life as a knight, as a captain, and as the most hated man in the kingdom. Two hundred years later, the river ran the same, the sun set the same and for all he knew, Lancelot would still be waiting for him at the castle, ready to tell him about his adventures abroad. Vane would serve him his first hot plate of food in weeks, eager to hear about his own escapades with the captain, and Percival would be waiting around the corner to scold him for the state of his hair and clothes. 

He had always known how quickly joy could give to sorrow when he cradled the dying king in his arms, and how quickly sorrow could give to joy when the captain held her hand out to him. He treasured those days, and he had looked forward to the ones that'd yet to come, even though they were never guaranteed like many other things in life.

She turned towards him then. The same wind that combed through her hair pulled the breath from his lungs while the evening light cast her in red, her face framed by gossamer—the captain was no longer of this world, so whose eyes gazed at him, and whose shoulders carried the boundless skies before him?

Siegfried turned away from her again, moving on without another word.

———————

Djeeta didn’t think to question Siggy’s intentions when they were both determined to bring down the black dragon, but she began to second-guess herself when the other suddenly dropped to his knees to dig furiously at the ground.

“What are you—?” Before she could finish, a handle sprouted from the dirt and he grabbed it, heaving open a giant trapdoor.

“Looks like this is still here.”

Djeeta took care not to disturb the layer of cobwebs as she leaned down to see whatever she was supposed to be seeing in the darkness. “Where does it lead?” Better yet, how were they supposed to find a dragon down there?

“To the castle, technically, but we just need to get to the underground archives.”

She frowned at him. Maybe it was the cobwebs, or the spider she just kicked off of her own leg, but her head only buzzed with more questions. If he wanted to go to the castle, he could’ve just said so and she would’ve found a way to win them both an audience—

“Don’t you think it’s strange,” he asked her, tilting his head. 

Strange that he was going to lead her into a secret underground passage? A bit.

Siggy waved a hand. “That’s not what I meant.”

Could he stop doing that?

His lips twitched before he turned back towards the passageway. “What I mean is, don’t you think it’s strange that you were sent to seal away the dragon, but were never given the means to do so?”

Djeeta frowned, was there more to it than fighting? “I was told Siegfried needs blood—”

“He reawakens every fifty years,” he said. “Did no one think to try something else, or does somebody need to die every time the dragon wakes?”

Djeeta was quiet for a moment. She knew she was risking her life when she took the job, but if there was a way to seal the dragon once and for all so nobody else needed to get hurt, then she wanted to know about it. Even so, something else struck her as odd.

“Maybe no one was strong enough.”

She noticed the way his shoulders stiffened, but he stepped closer towards the edge leading into darkness before she could ask him what was wrong. “If there’s a way to put him to sleep forever, then the archive may tell us.”

Frowning still, she wanted to reach for him and ask what he was really thinking. She never felt that he was lying to her, but at the same time there was still so much that she didn’t know. Who put him in the cavern, how could he still be alive when she pulled a sword straight out of his chest, and how was it that he fell a dragon so quickly and so easily right afterwards?

“Siggy.”

He paused, head turning slightly. “Are you scared?”

She closed her fists, bandages tightening around where the steel had cut her. Even when she looked Siegfried in the eyes with nothing more than a sharp rock in her hands, she never doubted herself. She had been ready to fight with whatever she had left—would she die doing it? Maybe, maybe not. It wasn’t like the thought never crossed her mind—in fact, it crossed her mind several times, but there had always been a quiet awareness within her chest that somehow, things would work out—

But things were different now. She was staring at somebody who could grip a sword with no regrets, who could grasp what he wanted without needing to pray to a higher power.

“I want…” She steeled herself. “I want to learn how to fight. From you.”

That gave him pause. The breeze moved the hair from his eyes, and Djeeta wondered what he saw as his stare bore straight into her.

“You already know how to fight,” he replied, voice far gentler than his gaze. 

But when had he seen it? Before she could ask aloud, Siggy turned to face her all the way this time. Another moment passed before he seemed to finally relent.

“But I still owe you a debt. If you’re willing to learn from somebody like m—”

Djeeta didn't let him finish as she thrust both arms into the air in triumph, his words clearing her mind and heart of any doubt in one fell swoop. "Yes!" She shouted, fists closing as her voice echoed across the valley. "What are we waiting for then?" Before he could say anything else, she grabbed him by the arm and charged straight through the curtain of cobwebs at his great expense.

———————

Siegfried was still picking the webbing out of his hair when they arrived at their destination. The underground passageways were just as he remembered, and fortunately for the two of them, the secret entry and exit points the old king told him about remained intact.

He noted the scorch marks on the walls, but no smell or hint of fire. The entire archive had been rearranged, shelves replaced, and the collection itself much smaller than he remembered. It was concerning, but there was no better place to start their search.

He pointed Djeeta to what he figured were Feendrache’s records on agriculture and trade history, something harmless that would keep her busy. “Keep your eyes open for anything on the black dragon.” In fact, that was the last thing he wanted her to find, but again, fifty years of changes to potato farming techniques were unlikely to complicate things. 

“Gotcha!”

Siegfried himself wandered to the far end of the archive, thankful he didn’t have to spend too much time looking for Feendrache’s military records. A small flame within a cage burned nearby, soft but bright enough to light his end of the room.

He found the most recent records and traced back one… two hundred years, frowning when he found that the section dedicated to his time as the captain of the Black Dragons was mysteriously empty save for a few volumes. He recalled the scorch marks on the wall of the room.

“What are you looking for, Dragonslayer?”

Siegfried closed his hand, glancing back at the caged flame. “You remember me.”

“I could never forget you,” the flame said, hovering from between the bars to perch even closer to him. Her voice was small as if she were talking to him from someplace far away. “Ever since you returned for the first time, I lost Isabella and I could no longer help the people with Alma. I kept wondering if it would have been better if you never returned at all.”

Siegfried smiled mirthlessly. “Do you begrudge me?”

“Begrudge? Maybe I did, but Lyria liked you,” Sylph replied.

Siegfried left it at that, turning back towards the shelf to see if the missing sections had been misplaced elsewhere.

Sylph watched him search the shelves, inspecting the gaps in the records and flipping through the random volume, only to put it back after gleaning nothing of interest. “You won’t find it. Part of the archive was lost in a fire some time ago,” she said as if to finally take pity on him. She hovered to the section close to where the records on his time as a knight should have been, moving a few inches closer to present day. “But maybe this will be helpful.”

Siegfried accepted her suggestion, taking out the first volume in the series as Sylph moved out of his way, returning to her perch to continue watching him. “Thank you.”

Lancelot’s name was the first thing that caught his eye when he skimmed the first page. The Order of the White Dragon’s first captain, a prodigy in both tactics and martial arts, other things he already knew. Vane was there alongside a list of his accomplishments as vice-captain as well. Siegfried flipped ahead to the next section.

He had been successful during his missions abroad, securing alliances with both neighboring kingdoms and foreign islands. Their partnerships were instrumental in strengthening Feendrache as a nation, and Lancelot was hailed as the kingdom’s pillar. Siegfried felt a warmth budding in his chest as the next several pages were dedicated to his accomplishments as captain and ambassador. There was a certain pride that only teachers could feel after all.

_ If you can guide them to become better than you, then that’s enough_.

He could spend the rest of the night reading his and Vane’s adventures together, but Djeeta would catch on eventually. He skipped ahead a few more sections and stopped.

_ “... The captain of the Order of the White Dragons was murdered when he faced the Archtraitor in the Howling Valley. The Archtraitor escaped with the black dragon’s fang, and without it, the seal remains incomplete. _

_ “May Captain Lancelot’s name continue to ring throughout history, a symbol of our Kingdom’s greatness. May his spirit rest in eternal glory.” _

Siegfried shut the book, and then his eyes. He reopened both. The life of a knight was usually not one of peace, but until now, he had hoped the three of them lived the rest of their days out quietly. He forced himself to read through the paragraphs that detailed the aftermath of his death. There was no mention of the Archtraitor’s identity, and according to the rest of the records, the black dragon’s fang remained missing.

What use did anyone have for his greatsword—better yet, who within their ranks could best Lancelot in a fight? 

Gleaning what he could, Siegfried replaced the book on the shelf.

“Who was the Archtraitor?”

Sylph flickered. “I was asleep during that time. It wasn't too long after you went missing.”

It was worth a try. What the next few volumes had on the black dragon and his greatsword echoed what the first volume already told him—it was the only weapon capable of putting the “true” dragon to rest, permanently. If he could find it, then he would finally be able to put an end to this all.

Unfortunately for him, the sky was a big place. Fortunately for them, the captain had many allies who weren’t bound by mortal time, and perhaps he had Sylph to thank for reminding him. 

“Do you remember what you said to me when I was saved from Fafnir?” She asked when he got up from his knees, flickering again. “You called me a monster.” 

He did remember, but he didn’t like where this was going.

“Was it so wrong?” Her voice was softer. “To act according to my purpose? Then what is a knight’s purpose, Dragonslayer?”

Siegfried said nothing.

_ “Perhaps if that girl could have accepted what your purpose was, you wouldn’t have killed her.” _

Siegfried slapped a hand to his neck—the sharp sensation was gone. Sylph quietly watched him, awaiting his answer.

“Thank you for your help. If you don’t need anything from me, I’ll take my leave now.”

She seemed to glow brighter. “I want to see Lyria again. I thought she would be here because Djeeta was, but—”

“Lyria’s resting,” Siegfried said evenly. He didn’t know if that was still the case, but he’d already lost too much in a single day. “And you’ve mistaken that girl for somebody else.”

The flame dimmed as Sylph silently returned to her perch within the cage. Siegfried walked over to it, undoing the tiny latch and letting the door swing open. A favor from one monster to another. 

“Maybe it’s what my creator intended,” Sylph murmured, voice as dim as her light. “When people cross over, I forget they don’t come back.”

———————

It was midnight when they resurfaced, the moon shining amidst a cloudless night guiding them the rest of the way. It was too late to find an inn that would take them, so they set up camp just outside of the capital.

Djeeta shared with him tidbits on last year’s harvest, Feendrache’s foreign relationships, and lore on the various primal beasts that blessed the lands near and far. If she was annoyed that he pointed her in the wrong direction on purpose, she didn’t show it and Siegfried almost felt guilty for it—there had been nothing for her to accidentally discover when his time as a knight had been wiped from history. 

“So we just need to find this black dragon’s fang and defeat Siegfried for good? Do you think it’s still on the island?”

“Not likely,” he replied, tending to the fire. “The Archtraitor was banished from the island, but they were never able to retrieve it.”

Djeeta frowned as she scooted closer to the fire. Siegfried noticed the goosebumps on her arms.

“I wonder why you couldn’t find their name.”

It was a good question, Siegfried thought to himself. Perhaps for the same reason they erased his own name from the books. Sylph said the records were lost in a fire, but she never said it was an accident. 

When the moon hung high enough in the sky, he watched her settle down for a night, staking out a spot close to the fire. His gaze softened then as she buried her face in the crook of her arm, the rest of her body shivering as the night chill set in.

It was his fault she was sleeping on the cold ground instead of the warm bed the kingdom owed her, yet she followed him around without so much as a single complaint unless it was on his behalf. The captain too had been kind to a fault, overly trusting when she was behooved to be a little more cautious, but it was her overflowing kindness that invited somebody like him aboard where she hoped trouble would no longer find him. 

Siegfried unwrapped the scarf from his neck and draped it over her shoulders. The tattered cloth that had seen too many battles didn’t suit her the slightest bit, but he remembered what it was like to be cold. 

He turned his face towards the sky then, watching the countless stars twinkle down at him unchanging in two hundred years. Where were they now, and what did they think of what he’d become?

It was a useless endeavor, but he couldn’t help but wonder.


	3. Chapter 3

_ She held the small gem-like object up to his face, one eye closed as she tilted it back and forth. She kept it up for a while, and when it became obvious to him that she was vying for his attention, Siegfried decided to humor her. _

_ “What have you got there?” _

_ “Doesn’t it look like something,” she asked as if she hadn’t been studying the object for the past minute, scowl unchanging. _

_ “Like a piece of amber?” _

_ She smiled at him, both sweetly and mischievously. “It’s the same color as your eyes, see? Look at how it catches the sunlight, Siegfried.” She placed the small pebble into the flat of her palm, offering it up to him. _

_ The captain certainly had an eye for the smaller things in life. It was so very ordinary and human of her, yet he never grew tired of it. _

_ With another smile, she stood and emptied her pockets, bits and pieces of more amber pouring onto the table to join its compatriot. “They’re gifts, so hold onto them, okay?” _

_ Siegfried took a piece between his fingers. “You’ve run out of space to store these, haven’t you.” _

_ The captain huffed. “Inventory gets expensive when assignments slow down, you know.” _

_ He sighed not without a smile of his own. “So I see. Then I suppose I can hold onto your ‘gifts’.” _

———————

Siegfried served breakfast that morning, settling down to skin the two rabbits he pulled from their burrows.

“If you don’t like it, you don’t have to watch,” he said to the Djeeta who sat beside his workstation, looking paler than usual. The scarf she tried to return in a hurry after waking up remained wrapped about her shoulders like a shawl, doing its part in warding off the morning chill.

“I could learn a thing or two from you,” she replied with a half-lidded smile. “I mean, if it weren’t for you, who knows where I’d be right now.”

Somewhere more comfortable he reckoned. “All right, then. We’ll make do with what we have.”

Mealtime passed without incident when she was able to keep her food down and they made the short journey to the capital in order to finally give her injuries proper treatment.

“Does it hurt?” Siegfried asked her, inspecting the cuts for any signs of infection before he began to change the old bandages for new. They had managed to find a shop for herbal remedies and other medicinal concoctions when they reached town, and Siegfried took the opportunity to check on her wounds while the shopkeeper bustled around in the back. He glanced up expectantly when she didn’t say anything.

“Huh,” she blinked. “Oh, no. Do you think we can get started on those lessons you mentioned—”  
  


Siegfried smiled to himself. “Nice try. Let’s start with knowing when to give it a rest.”

He could tell she had half a mind to argue but the shopkeeper interrupted them both before she got the words out.

“If time is an issue, why not sample this balm,” he suggested, making a show out of pulling the jar from the selection lining the shelves. “Our healers might not be in town, but this stuff has been blessed by the finest of them.”

Djeeta brightened at that as Siegfried peered at the offered medicine, smelling it first before dipping his finger into the waxy substance and licking it. The shopkeeper and Djeeta both watched him in stunned silence as he smacked his lips, tongue prickling.

The shopkeeper sputtered. “Sir, y-you weren’t supposed to _ eat_—”

“A blend of olea oil and basii fruit,” Siegfried murmured, plucking the jar out of his hands. “You must’ve had a hard time finding ingredients like those around here.”

The shopkeeper was at a loss for words, wondering if this was going to be the last he’d see of the jar’s contents.

“As for the magic, however,” Siegfried continued, rubbing a small amount along one of the open cuts. Strangely enough, Djeeta’s palms were hotter than they were before, but he didn't pick up any other signs of a fever from her since that morning.

Before he could ask, the ointment glowed green as it sunk into her skin, making quick work of the wound as if there was a mage standing over them, working their magic. It worked better than he hoped.

Satisfied, he reached into his armor and placed a handful of amber onto the counter, hoping it was just as valuable now as it was two hundred years ago. The shopkeeper inspected the pieces, wide-eyed.

“Oh, it’s… it’s only—”

Siegfried wordlessly split the small pile in half.

“Ah—thank you for your business, sir,” the other man said, deciding to accept the payment lest his customer started 'sampling' the other goods. Siegfried pocketed the rest—it was about time he put good use to the captain’s efforts.

“And thank you for the medicine.”

They left the stall with Siegfried pocketing the leftover balm. He half-expected Djeeta to continue badgering him for sword fighting lessons now that they were free from the shop, but she remained strangely quiet as he caught a glimpse of flush creeping into her cheeks. Slipping his gauntlet off, Siegfried wordlessly pressed a hand to her forehead.

Djeeta almost tripped over her own feet. “Sig—?”

“Good,” he said after a moment, retracting his hand when he felt nothing amiss. “I was worried you caught something.” 

Even as he said so, Djeeta was red again as she pressed both hands to the spot he touched. She muttered something inaudible.

Blinking, he leaned in closer. “Are you angry?”

“Why would you think I’m angry,” she asked a little louder.

He tilted his head, wondering if he had been careless again. “I'm not sure, but after this, we can try a round of swords.”

Like before, her demeanor changed completely. “I’m not angry, Siggy,” she said. “You’re just—well, never mind. I’ll take you up on that so you better not forget about it.”

And like that, they renewed their investigation until their efforts lead them to the town square’s bulletin boards. He meant to take in the state of the kingdom as much as he could while Djeeta gathered clues—or lack thereof—of the black dragon’s whereabouts, but a large poster sporting an illustration of a white dragon with self-satisfied eyes drew her attention instead.

“Deirdre Fest… huh.”

Siegfried immediately recognized the name.

“It’s on a different island, but it’s not too far from here,” Djeeta said more to herself than anything else. “A festival to celebrate the guardian of Alster—is that the dragon?”

“Yes,” Siegfried answered without thinking. He remembered Alster and Deirdre both from his trips abroad during his time as a knight, and as a member of the captain’s crew. The time he shared with the warriors of Irestill and Deirdre, or Scathacha as she preferred to be called when in skydweller form, was short as they each had their obligations to their own kingdoms, but he remembered them all the same and the captain had often recalled the yearly festival with fondness. 

Djeeta glanced back at him, a familiar gleam in her eyes. “Have you ever been to a festival like it?”

“I haven’t,” he said, reaching out to adjust the scarf slipping from her shoulders. “It looks like it’d make a nice trip, wouldn’t it?”

The gleam grew brighter as Djeeta visibly struggled with her own budding excitement. “But we’re still looking for the black dragon’s fang aren’t we?”

Siegfried offered her a smile lest she collapse in on herself. “Which we probably won’t find here. There’s no harm in enjoying the view as we search, and it's been a while since I've last seen fireworks anyway.”

Even as he said so, Djeeta was onto something. Time was of the essence and the black dragon wasn’t going to lay low forever, but the captain had always enjoyed the fireworks on Auguste, hadn’t she? She made him promise to come with the others the following year, and then the year after that. Did he ever keep that promise—why couldn’t he remember?

Djeeta broke him out of his stupor, looking like she was about to cry. “So you’re coming with me, right,” she asked, hands clasped together. “I’ve never seen fireworks before.” 

Before he could answer, something or someone else seemed to catch her eye and Siegfried reflexively stepped to the side as an elderly woman separated herself from the crowd to promptly throw her arms around Djeeta.

“You’re safe,” the woman exclaimed breathlessly, letting go only to pap the other’s cheeks with affection. “Thank the gods you’re safe, Djeeta dear. Don’t tell me—you already defeated the black dragon? Shouldn’t you be at the castle celebrating?” 

“Oh, Auntie.” Djeeta blinked, taking a split second to gather herself. “I—it’s a long story, but it’s a work in progress—”

“Never mind that, I’m just so happy to see that you’re safe,” the woman Djeeta called ‘Auntie’ said while Siegfried was unsure if she was listening to everything she was saying. “Ever since you took our grandson’s place, I didn’t know if I’d see you again. Just make sure you come by again before rushing off into danger, okay? The youngest keeps asking about you.”

“Of course,” she replied, smiling sheepishly before glancing at him for an escape plan. “Auntie, this is Siggy—we’re working together to defeat the black dragon, and I owe him my life.”

Auntie turned her eyes on him, and even though she stood even shorter than Djeeta, her hands still managed to find his cheeks to pinch. “My, look at you! You haven’t eaten a good meal in a while, have you?” 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he managed to say.

“You can call me ‘Auntie’ too. I can tell you’re a good man, but there’s no need to be so formal” she gently scolded, finally retracting her hands as if she gleaned enough from him. “I was so worried for dear Djeeta. I could never imagine my own children traveling so far from home without any companions.”

“Oh, um—she helped me when I didn’t know anything about the kingdom,” Djeeta hastily explained. “If it weren’t for her, I never would have made it to the castle.”

“Our family owes you a great deal,” she said, taking her hands into her own. “All our lives, we have always accepted the black dragon as this land’s blessing and curse… until our idiot grandson said he wanted to face the dragon himself. We never should have let you go—”

“It was my decision,” Djeeta said quickly, grasping her hands back. “And see? I’m fine, not a single scratch, thanks to him.”

The older woman settled into a warm smile. “You have our eternal gratitude as well then,” she said to him. “Why don’t the two of you come back to our stall? I’ll fix you both something to eat.”

Siegfried couldn’t argue with that, and before he knew it, the woman half his size ferried them both through the crowd.

The stall in question was modest, but there was plenty of room beneath the awning for the three of them as the older woman sat them down. Not too far away from the bustle were two children who stopped their game of tag to watch him and Djeeta get fussed over by their grandmother. Siegfried smiled at them, but they scurried back behind the crates, torn between their excitement at seeing Djeeta again and their wariness of the stranger that accompanied her.

“Don’t mind them,” Auntie said, placing two bowls of meat and vegetable stew before them both. Siegfried bowed his head in thanks, but before he could start on the food, the smallest of the two dashed from his place behind the crates to tug on his armor.

“Are you a knight, mister?”

His grandmother scolded him. “Vier! Where are your manners? Let the poor man eat.”

“I don’t mind,” Siegfried said placatingly before turning to face the small child who must’ve been no older than five. “I used to be.”

Emboldened, the other joined her youngest sibling. “Used to be? Were you fired?”

“Drei!” She scolded while Siegfried couldn’t help but laugh.

“Drei wants to be a White Dragon,” Vier said, balancing on the balls of his feet. “But I wanna be a Black Dragon.”

Drei made a face. “There _ are _ no Black Dragons, stupid! And what’s so wrong with wanting to be a White Dragon like Ein, huh?”

Vier tried to wail on his sister, but his tiny fists didn’t do much good. “I wanna be a black one though!”

“You could start your own Order of the Black Dragons and work together with the White Dragons,” Djeeta offered helpfully, bending down. “Wouldn’t that make the kingdom twice as strong?”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Siegfried said. 

Vier brightened, but Drei turned her nose up at the idea. “There’s already a _ black _ dragon. You want to be ugly, evil, and scary?”

That seemed to strike a nerve as the small boy began to tear up and Siegfried couldn’t help but be the slightest bit offended on his behalf.

“Drei…” Auntie said disapprovingly, hand on her hip with ladle in the other. “That’s no way to talk about this land’s protector.”

“Protector?” Djeeta asked, frowning while he wondered the same.

Auntie sighed, replacing the ladle in the nearby pot. “It’s not in any of our history books, but True Dragon Siegfried used to protect our land. We owe all our peace and fortune today to him, but that’s not the kind of thing many people believe nowadays.”

“It’s Granny’s favorite story,” Vier said, throwing his tiny hands into the air. “Siegfried was a good dragon who protected us from other kingdoms!”

“Then why does he get so mad?” Drei asked, miffed that she seemed to have fallen out of the conversation’s favor. “They were going to send Ein to fight him, but Djeeta went instead because she didn’t want him to die!”

“He wasn’t going to die. I just wanted to go,” Djeeta said before explaining to him on the side, “Ein is their eldest. He’s a knight within the Order.”

Auntie was quiet for a moment, stirring thoughtfully. Siegfried took the bowl into his hands and quietly began to eat, listening intently. 

“Maybe he’s mourning.” The spoon didn’t reach his mouth.

“What’s mourning,” Vier asked, hands finding perch on the spot next to him.

“It means he’s sad, stupid,” Drei answered. “What’s he so sad for, Granny? Even Vier feels better after he cries a little, but Siegfried’s been sad for a billion years.”

“Two billion years,” Vier quipped.

Auntie smiled, almost sadly. “Who knows for sure? Perhaps he’s still mourning our very last king, or maybe everything we’ve lost since then.”

Siegfried set his empty plate back down, the conversation long taken an awkward turn for him. “Excuse me Auntie, but what do you mean by your ‘last king’? Do you not have one anymore?”

Auntie blinked in surprise. “Oh dearie me—I assumed you were from around here when you blended in so well with everyone else.”

“Oh! You did mention something like that earlier, but I forgot to say something at the time,” Djeeta said almost apologetically. “King Carl was the last of the royal line. Feendrache is ruled by council now—everything is decided by vote.”

It sounded terribly inefficient, but he distantly recalled Irestill being in the same boat. He would have to see later if it worked out well enough for them, but the people of Feendrache seemed to be doing more than well—even the smallest villages bustled with life, children running through the streets while the adults laughed and smiled well into the night no matter what day it was. It was a far cry from the towns he remembered that bordered the outskirts of the kingdom, neglected and battered from a history of war.

Auntie nodded at Djeeta’s words. “You can say we’re a kingdom without a king or queen. It’s been this way for two hundred years, but our home has always known prosperity. Every mouth has food to eat, every head a roof, and every body a warm bed to lie in with not a single drop of blood shed between us and our neighbors. The life that True Dragon Siegfried takes every fifty years is supposed to be a small price, but…” She reached over the counter to grasp Djeeta’s hand with withered fingers. “Well, you live up to your name, Djeeta dear.”

  
  


———————

  
  


It felt good to end the day with warm food in her belly as Djeeta watched the children terrorize Siggy with their wooden swords. The two managed to drag him into their game of knights and dragons and zombies, not that it took much work when Siggy seemed surprisingly eager to play the parts they wanted him to play, whether that be an evil knight or horse or dragon.

Smiling absentmindedly to herself, she watched the former knight roll over with a concerningly realistic death gurgle as Drei continued hitting him with her sword. Auntie warned them to be gentle, but she reassured her he’d be able to take it. It wasn’t long before Siggy was on his knees again, crowning Drei with the highest honor of “Dragon” while Vier climbed onto his back, demanding that his 'horse' take him back to the castle. Siggy obliged, sound effects and all until Drei hit him again because horses _ whinnied _, not 'neighed' in that serious voice of his.

Djeeta almost fell off the bench as he obediently whinnied without hesitation, Vier pulling on his hair like they were reins.

“I’m so happy for you, dearie,” Auntie said with fondness as she watched the children pile on top of the other, fighting for a spot on the horse's back.

Djeeta wiped the tears from her eyes. “Hm? Why that all of a sudden?”

The elderly woman turned her gentle smile on her, and Djeeta couldn’t help but recall how she reached out to her when she wandered lost within the busiest part of Feendrache’s capital. She was without food and companions or any sense of how to get to the castle in a foreign land, but this woman opened her home to a stranger like her, and that was where she learned of their plight and made the final decision to face Siegfried in her grandson’s place. 

“After you left our home for the castle, I was worried because I thought you would be alone, but it looks like you’ve found somebody who cares for you very much.”

Djeeta lowered her gaze, eyes tracing the bandages still wrapped around her hands even though her wounds had closed for the most part. “Cares for me… huh.”

The other gestured towards the tattered scarf she still had wrapped around her neck. “You don’t think so?”

Djeeta was at a loss for words for a moment, fingers playing with the fabric as she quietly breathed in his smell. She caught the faintest hint of musk, but what it reminded her of most was the scent of the forest in the morning where she’d practice her swordplay on Zinkenstill, her only company the moss-covered rocks she’d occasionally use as her dummies. The memory sobered her up, but the hurt ran deeper than homesickness and she didn’t know why.

Nostalgia aside, she didn’t know what to think. Siggy had been nothing but kind to her—when he draped his scarf over her shoulders, it felt like it had been held up to a fire. When he treated her wounds, he wrapped her hands slowly enough for her to pick up on the technique. When he swiped the swords from the merchant, he had picked something small and lightweight as to not agitate the cuts on her palms. Always... he had always been thinking of her.

And yet she felt like there was a gap between them that she couldn’t close—a distant look in his eyes as if he were trapped in a place far away from here, words they both wanted to say but couldn’t. 

But despite all of the uncertainty, he was kind. For what it was worth, she knew that much to be true.

Auntie took her hand again, eyes twinkling like dark stars. “It’s not something to rush,” she told her gently, “You’re both so young so just continue to enjoy the time you’ll spend together. The two of you were thinking of going to Alster Island for the festival, weren’t you?" She chuckled when Djeeta flushed.

“I—we haven’t even thought of the costs, or how to even get there, or anything else really.”

Auntie shook her head. “It would be a mark of disgrace on our family and kingdom to make you work for your fare. I’ll have something arranged for the two of you in the morning, but why don’t you and Siggy rest here for the night?”

She beamed, gratitude swelling within her chest. The people of this land truly were generous, and her dreams of a genuine festival were just a day from realization. Siggy had a point, but she didn’t think he’d agree so easily, nor did she think he’d be one to chase Drei on all fours while Vier rode on his back. They didn’t know where the black dragon’s fang was, but like he said, it wouldn’t hurt to enjoy the view while they searched.

  
  


———————

  
  


Siegfried didn’t realize how tired he was until his body sunk into his first warm bed in two hundred years.

“You have my utmost gratitude for your hospitality, Auntie,” he had said before they all retired for the night, arm folded across his middle while he bowed his head. Her grandchildren continued climbing up his legs, begging him to finish playing the part where the zombie dragon came back from the grave to burn the whole village down.

She fluttered. “My, you really do have the mark of a most honorable knight.”

Lying motionless, he mulled over her words and the state of Feendrache—Vane inherited the chaos in the wake of Lancelot’s death and the Archtraitor’s exile. Despite everything, he built something that would last and the Order of the White Dragons that continued to operate today was testament to that. He could smile to himself if only the mythology surrounding the black dragon and the Archtraitor didn’t weigh so heavily on his mind.

There were too many things he didn’t know and there were too many mysteries that needed solving. Even then, the nagging on his conscience still wasn’t enough to keep him from drifting off to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

It was still dark when he awoke to Djeeta sitting with her back to him at the edge of his bed. Even as he shifted, she didn’t turn to look at him, choosing instead to continue gazing out through the fenestra. Her hair gleamed silver in the moonlight.

_ “Maybe… Just maybe I’ll get it right this time.” _

Siegfried wanted to tell her to go back to her own bed and get some rest, but his eyes slid shut again before he could utter a single word.

  
  


———————

  
  


Morning came quickly enough and their host sent them off to the docks after stuffing her bag with an assortment of bread and medicine for the trip.

“I know the two of you will get into some sort of trouble, but I’m not worried,” she explained with her usual motherly smile, casting Siggy a knowing glance.

Vier and Drei clung to their legs, less than dignified than their grandmother at goodbyes while tears and snot poured down their faces in streams. They were even worse off since the last time Djeeta had to leave them behind, but she couldn't blame them when Siggy just had that effect on people. While she couldn't understand a single word of theirs through the highs and lows of their wailing, she figured she got the idea.

Kneeling down with some difficulty after doing her best to pry Vier from her side, she pat them both once, twice on the head. “How about we play swords when we get back? Siggy can be our dragon again.”

“I don’t know about that,” he said, eyes closed in a gentle smile despite the wet spot Drei gifted and continued gifting to his pant leg. “Vier and Drei hit like veteren knights. I’m not sure if I can take any more of it.”

“I-I won’t use my special move this time,” she cried, the regret on her face clear as day. He offered a rare chuckle.

“In that case, I’ll be much obliged.”

They made their way to the docks then, well-rested and bellies full while the weather forecast predicted gentle winds and a clear sky prime for fireworks. She turned her eyes to the open air, arms spread beside her while Siggy was the one who trailed behind this time. 

“Look at you, and the festival hasn’t even started,” he told her, a smile in his words.

“Can you blame me,” Djeeta said, grinning at him from over her shoulder. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten what you promised me either.”

“Hm?” He blinked, tilting his head unassumingly. “Oh, I did do something like that, didn’t I?”

He promised her a sparring session. Despite everything else, Djeeta couldn’t stop thinking about the swordplay that fell a true dragon, but she’d been too shy to mention it until Siggy offered her the opportunity on a silver platter. He really did have a knack for meeting her across the ways and at this point, it wasn’t even a question anymore.

After boarding and with the helmswoman’s approval, Djeeta staked out an open spot on the deck of the passenger airship while Siggy set aside their possessions. Apparently satisfied with the arrangement, he turned to face her and drew his sword while Djeeta drew hers, trembling to the bone.

“I know you’re excited, but you have to hold your sword steady,” he told her.

“Yes sir,” she answered, steeling her wrists. Siggy lunged, and she met his blow with her own, almost dropping her sword when the force of the strike shot up her arm and spread throughout her upper body.

The other drew back, not a single strand of hair out of place. “Straighten your wrist, and only tighten your grip when our swords are about to touch. You’re trying to overpower my blows when you should be more focused on _ outperforming _ me.”

This was turning into more like a lecture than a sparring match, not that she minded in the slightest bit.

Siggy closed the distance between them again and when her grip faltered, she opted to side-step instead. Before she could bring in her weapon for a counterattack, the other was already a step ahead of her, his sword swinging around to deflect her blow.

Djeeta leaped back, reassessing the situation. Her opponent outmatched her in both power and experience, but winning was never the goal here. 

She took the initiative this time, her steps a blur before Siggy met her blow for blow without yielding a single inch. His stance was that of a rock, but his reactions were something else entirely when outmatching her movements and seeing through each of her fakeouts was all but a trivial matter to him.

“Better,” he said between strikes, breath perfectly even while Djeeta struggled to catch hers.

He met each of her blows with the firmness of an opponent and the patience of a teacher. Even Djeeta considered herself a seasoned fighter despite what she knew she lacked, but going head-to-head with the technique that could best an otherworldly strength was beyond anything she'd ever faced before.

He really was everything she hoped for.

After parrying each and every one of her attacks, Siggy stood his ground, the weight in his stance shifting. A single beat passed between them before he drew his sword back, the look in his eyes enough to stop a raging beast in its tracks. If this one landed, she’d be done for.

_ You need to fly_.

It was a move she saw once on that fateful day, and it was a move she practiced a thousand times since then. She didn’t think she’d pull out the imperfect technique this early in the game, but she didn’t want things to end so soon either. It was now or never. 

Breathing out, time seemed to slow as every muscle in her body relaxed. In an instant, she focused all her power to the balls of her feet, leaping up and landing on the tip of her opponent’s sword, barely making contact before she was in the air again.

It was a move she only saw once, but could never forget.

Her sword swung into reverse grip as she brought her knees close to her chest for the split second it took for her to flip, body twisting as she brought her blade straight down. Whether she would hit her mark or not was up to chance now.

She missed.

Or rather, she was on the ground, pinned by a weight that she only realized a second later was the Siggy's knee. She tried her best to turn her head to look at him, lips parting before her blood ran cold at the sight of his face.

Piercingly golden eyes, a gaping blackness that threatened to swallow her whole—

_ Who—? _

“Where did you learn that move?” The faintness of his voice belied something else.

“I—” She tried to push herself up as a crowd began to gather around them, but her strength betrayed her. Had he always been this heavy, or was she really this weak? “Siggy—”

The sound of his name seemed to do the trick as he snapped out of it, the look on his face gone as quickly as it appeared before he took his knee away. Djeeta pushed herself onto all fours—for once in her life, an utter defeat left her at a loss for words and she couldn't even muster a witty remark or two.

Siggy took hold of her arm, helping her up the rest of the way. “Are you hurt?” He asked.

“I’m not, but—” she froze again, hand flying to her chest as her heart suddenly began pounding against her ribs.

Those eyes—why couldn’t she shake herself of those eyes?

As her hands trembled, darkness ate at the corners of her vision while her blood hammered in her ears. Something reached for her and she pushed it away without thinking, realizing a moment too late that it was only him. His hand paused for a moment, fingers curling before he took it back.

He didn’t look angry, but Djeeta swore she heard the sound of a curtain falling. 

“Have more confidence,” he said after a heavy pause. “Or you’ll hurt yourself attempting a move like that against a real enemy.”

_ A real enemy_—the weight of his voice made her skin prickle, but Siggy was already turning away from her.

_ Wait. _

_ Don’t go— _

She urged her body to move, but it remained rooted to the spot, her hands refusing to obey her as she tried desperately to reach him.

_ What am I so afraid of? _

She continued to struggle with herself as he gathered their belongings, but he parted the crowd and disappeared beneath the deck without looking back once.

———————

It was well into the evening when Siggy allowed himself to be found, leaning on the siding of the airship while the moon hung overhead. It was another familiar night for the two of them.

The rest of the passengers had long retired for the evening with their bellies full from dinner which Djeeta had spent alone. Joining his side, she handed him a roll of bread from her bag—it wasn’t a question, and Siggy had enough sense not to make it one as he accepted it.

She pulled out a second roll and tore it in half so she could eat around the crust, her stomach thanking her for the long-awaited meal if she could even call it that. Her appetite had failed her earlier, and she had left the mess hall without touching her food only to come back to an empty room with an empty stomach and nothing else to show.

“We usually eat together,” she said, answering the unspoken question.

She’d always known about the space between them since the beginning in more ways than one, but it was easy to forget when he fumbled with the things she’d take for granted, or when he fit naturally into the roles that others demanded of him. He was that kind of man. His smiles were sweet and rare, but there was no end to the warmth in his eyes.

And all the while, he drew her in with one arm while keeping her at bay with the other, but perhaps he wasn’t the only one to blame for the open rift between them when it wasn’t only her that he kept at arm’s length. She knew that now, and how could she promise to defeat the black dragon if she couldn’t even face what was right in front of her?

Djeeta stepped closer and placed her hand over the one she had pushed away.

Siggy didn’t flinch, but the glimmer within the eyes he turned on her reminded her of something otherworldly. She met them with determination.

“I’m sorry it took me this long.”

Something pained crossed his face, but it was gone before she could catch a second glimpse. “Why are you the one apologizing?”

Djeeta didn’t answer right away. Instead, she took his hand into both of hers, bringing it close to her chest.

It was heavy, the pads of his fingers thick with callouses from untold years of training and fighting, but it was warm too. If she willed herself to utter silence, then she could feel his pulse beating in tune with her own.

“You’re… warm. Everything about you is… always warm.”

She glanced up at him then. “Siggy… you were trapped in that cave for two hundred years, weren’t you?”

Something else passed over his face, but she couldn’t decipher it before it was gone again, swallowed by the rift. 

“You’ve figured that out, have you now?”

Given everything, she should’ve figured it out sooner. “Then you’re not human either, are you?”

Djeeta recognized the look this time. Resignation, or rather the weariness of a man realizing there was no fighting the pull of the waves or the push of her curiosity. “I’m not quite sure what I am anymore.”

If she wasn’t holding onto him, she wondered if he would’ve found an opportunity to slip away again. Djeeta squeezed his hand.

She didn’t know what to do with the answers and non-answers she now had in her grasp, but it didn’t feel like anything changed at all. If she pressed an ear to his chest, surely she’d hear his heart beat the same way as hers and if she closed her eyes, surely she’d see the gentle flame burning. 

If it weren't for earlier, perhaps she would've continued on without knowing or even taking the time to understand him. Siggy’s knowledge of the kingdom came up two hundred years short, and while that could be explained away by him being an outsider, Auntie had taken him for otherwise when she knew who _ she _was all along.

Siggy never lied to her. She’d just been too self-centered to seek the answers herself.

“All this time then,” she said. “I called ourselves partners, but I left you to fend for yourself.”

How could she even begin to imagine what it must be like, to wake up two centuries in the future with nothing to go by but a few books and a half-baked skyfarer?

“Do you see this as your fault,” Siggy replied, pained again as Djeeta wondered what it was she was missing this time. To her, he was everything she wanted to be—strong but not without gentleness, resolute but not without kindness, but as she glanced up at him, he was no longer the knight who swung a blade of conviction, but a child waiting to be scolded.

Something urged her to close the space between them. She couldn’t pull him down, so she opted to wrap her arms around him instead.

“I’m bad at this,” she said, swallowing another apology before it escaped. Everything about him felt human and even if he wasn’t, nothing changed. He saved her life and looked after her without being asked to, and yet everything he did seemed to be just one apology after another. Djeeta took it for simple kindness at the time, but the faraway look beneath his warmth spoke of something else.

_ If not mine, then whose? Is it yourself that you’ve been blaming? _

“Djeeta?”

Her eyes slid shut. “That’s the first time you’ve said my name,” she murmured. “Can you say it again?”

She felt him pause, but even now he didn’t push her away as his hands found uncertain purchase on her back. 

“Djeeta.”

She pulled back just so she could look up at him again. By all means, she should be embarrassed, but she could no longer bother with the details when she felt like she was finally returning home after a long, long journey. The space between his arms was a place where the black dragon couldn’t touch her and once again, the rift was nowhere in sight. She pressed forward.

“I don’t know what you’ve lost during those two hundred years, nor might I ever begin to understand it, but someone like you shouldn’t be walking forward alone.”

He blinked slowly, lips parting without any words to share of his own before she continued, mustering the courage just as she mustered the strength to free him from that place.

“I can’t replace what you’ve lost, but I want to continue traveling with you even when this is all over,” she said, eyes never leaving his. “I like it when you smile, when you laugh, and when you speak to me, even if you’re just explaining all the things I’m doing wrong. Maybe these past few days are nothing compared to what you’ve gone through, but I can’t… I can’t let any of it go.”

Gaze softening, his thoughts seemed to stray as he lifted a hand to brush the hair from the side of her face. Djeeta felt him stiffen as he realized what he was doing, but she leaned into him before he could take his hand away.

“That’s not true,” he said after taking a moment to accept the direction things were headed. “If it weren’t for you, I’m not quite sure where I’d be.”

“Maybe in that cave,” she offered.

His eyes seemed to twinkle at that despite himself, if only for a moment. “Or perhaps someplace darker.”

Djeeta let go of him, the cold night air reuniting with her front as she turned away and faced the open sky instead. The rudder of the airship carved a trail in its wake, clouds shifting below them like a gentle sea while the stars twinkled down at them both from overhead. She wondered if he’d ever been on an airship before, and then she wondered if they too would eventually part ways like the others she’d met before.

No more favors. No more apologies. She didn’t want to be the shackles that replaced the sword she pulled from his heart.

“It was a knight,” she said after stretching the moment for as far as it would go. 

Siggy wordlessly joined her side, hand placed on the rails that separated them from the clouds. She glanced at him before turning her eyes back towards the horizon where the lights of distant islands glimmered back at her. She made it this far, leagues away from the only home she’s known.

“You asked me where I learned that move,” she explained, the familiar taste of homesickness on her tongue. “There was a knight who saved my village. Zinkenstill is the birthplace of my namesake, so we get all kinds passing through, but the way he fought stayed with me.”

Hand inches from his, Djeeta turned to face him again as a breeze combed through her hair. Perhaps it was only her imagination, but the murmur of the wind and the glimmer of the stars seemed to speak their words of encouragement as she smiled almost bitterly. “I’m sure it doesn’t compare to the original when I’ve only seen it once after all.”

Siggy didn’t reply, eyes blinking slowly as he waited for her to continue.

She lowered her own gaze then. “In a place where knights and warriors and skyfarers alike gather in hopes of receiving the Great Hero’s blessing, I thought he was what ‘true’ strength was. When I learned that he was from a kingdom called Feendrache, I thought that was where I’d be able to find my own strength.”

“Did you then,” Siggy asked. “Did you find it?”

Djeeta smiled again. The more she spoke, the more she felt that perhaps it was the rift that she imagined all along and not the other way around. “I don’t know, but I found you, didn’t I?”

  
  


———————

It was late by the time they finally retired for the night like the rest of the ship. He took the floor and Djeeta took the bed, pulling the covers up to her chin before turning on her side to stare at him as he staked out his spot. 

“No more apologies, remember,” she said in a tiny voice, the lids of her eyes threatening to slide shut when she was too tired to muster any more protest. Her hand blindly groped for him then, and Siegfried took her slender fingers within his own. She squeezed him.

“Then allow me to take the bed next time,” he relented, knowing she wouldn’t be satisfied otherwise.

A tired smile and another squeeze. “You’re warm, Siggy.”

That seemed to be another one of her pet phrases. She wasn’t wrong when he hadn’t known coldness in two centuries now, but it was a strange thing to say as often as she did. “You keep saying that, why?”

“Dunno,” she murmured, sinking deeper into the mattress. “Good night, Siggy.”

“Good night, Djeeta.”

When their fingers finally slipped apart, Siegfried crossed his legs and shut his own eyes as he placed his hands atop his knees. A fatigue that ran deeper than sleepiness continued to eat at him as his body urged him to rest before it would decide to utterly _ stop_.

He didn’t have much time, but it would help him to know why. Irestill’s guardian was his next best hope.

Exhaling softly, he worked on gradually emptying his mind, the events of the day falling away like the pages of a discarded journal. 

Lancelot’s trademark maneuver was unmistakable, but there was something off about the way Djeeta fell through the air. Whether it was the result of small changes culminating over several generations, or Djeeta’s own imperfect interpretation of something that was closer to the original, he didn’t know, but she deserved more credit than she gave herself for picking up on a move with her eyes alone.

Lancelot's swordplay remained alive in one form or another despite its owner having long left the world. If he stopped to take in the world as it was now, would he continue to find the echoes the others left in their wake?

_ He extended a hand, drawing her away from the edge. No more apologies, she told him, but he couldn’t be satisfied with just that after making her suffer through his lapse in judgement. _

_ “It’s just an imitation,” she said with another bitter smile. “You weren’t wrong.” _

_ “Then allow me to teach you the original,” he replied. “If you’ll still have me as your teacher.” _

Needless to say, Djeeta had accepted his invitation with open arms and unabashed enthusiasm. The more she beamed at him and the more she spoke to him with laughter in her words, the darker the shadow that loomed over him with claws that spelled out reminders on the back of his neck.

_ “You’ve abandoned your revenge just because you’ve found a replacement.” _

There was nothing to abandon. He continued to tear the pages from his mind, but everything he pushed aside only left more room for that yawning darkness.

_ “Does it hurt?” _

Djeeta couldn’t replace anyone. Her feet weren’t meant to fill the shoes that came attached to her birth name, but to carry her to a future of her own making. He’d already taken enough—

_ “I asked if it hurt.” _

Sudden pain shot through his skull and Siegfried bit back a cry as he doubled forward, hand clutched to his left eye. The worst of it passed as quickly as it came, but not without leaving him gasping for breath while his mind reeled from the sudden attack.

Djeeta’s chest continued to rise and fall uninterrupted when he managed to glance back at her, relieved to see that she was still asleep and that he had both his eyes. Swallowing thickly, he pressed his forehead to the cool surface of the bedpost.

_ You’re you, just you. Don’t let somebody like me take that away _.

A glimmer punctuated his thoughts with a reminder of a different, clawless sort. No more apologies.

_ I’ll do better this time. _


	5. Chapter 5

The blood boiling in his veins wrenched him out of his sleep as Siegfried half-stumbled out of bed, realizing a split moment later that Djeeta must’ve dragged him off the floor without him waking some time during the night. However, how he ended up in bed was the least of his problems when he sensed that something _ else _ had alighted upon the ship.

Sword in hand, he turned his attention to the door before someone kicked it open and strode right in without minding the half-dressed knight moments away from skewering her on the spot.

A young erune made herself right at home then, followed closely by a breathless Djeeta. Her drawl was unmistakable—even more so than the dragon’s blood that churned in his gut, announcing to him her true identity.

“I never thought you were a late-riser,” the true dragon said, brushing her silver hair back over her shoulder as she took in the rather ordinary state of their room. “If it weren’t for the child, who knows how many passengers I would’ve woken by knocking on their doors.”

Siegfried warily eyed her before sheathing his sword again. “How… fortunate.”

Djeeta sheepishly dipped between then, hands folded behind her back as she glanced between the two. “Um, this is Scathacha—I was getting ready for the morning, but she—well, it looks like you two know each other already.”

“We’ve met,” Siegfried said slowly as he tried to glean why True Dragon Deirdre took it upon herself to meet him _ here_. She saved him the trouble of seeking her out himself, but the smirk on her lips suggested that this was going to be more than just a simple catchup between two old acquaintances. 

“Forgive the intrusion, I was getting impatient,” Scathacha said as if she didn’t just knock down their cabin door without a second thought. She then paused, lithe fingers tracing her lip as she debated a question she hadn’t yet asked. However, before Siegfried could open his mouth, two more knights clamored in, making their cabin a very crowded place.

Djeeta stepped to the side, unsure of what to do besides help steady the one who was most out of breath.

“Lady Scathacha—” a deep gulp, “—please refrain from running off like that.”

“Is it a problem of mine that you took too long talking to the captain,” she replied, utterly unapologetic to the point that he almost felt sorry for the two of them. 

“At least allow up to accompany you if you’re going to seek out the Dragonslayer—”

“Dragonslayer,” Djeeta asked, latching onto that just as he expected. “You’ve slayed dragons before, Siggy?”

“Just one,” Siegfried answered, feeling his soul leave his body as Scathacha choked back _ something _ with that ridiculous smile still on her face.

“Just one, he says,” she said, resting a hand on her hip before addressing her two guards. “Let the captain know we’ll be taking two passengers off his hands. They’ll be coming with us back to the kingdom—yes, that includes you, child. Don’t worry.”

Djeeta blinked, unsure of what to make of the erune calling her such on top of everything else. However, despite her utter confusion and his own misgivings about the situation, Scathacha swept them both up without giving them much chance to protest.

  
  


———————

  
  


The trip to Alster aboard the ship from Irestill was nothing less than awkward for the two of them while their only saving grace was Djeeta’s penchant for getting easily distracted at the next shiny thing to cross her path. Scathacha enjoyed talking to her about her homeland, taking great pleasure as she pointed out Alster’s largest mountain range and pristine lakes that could be seen even from where they were in the skies. The young woman awed and ooed at the appropriate intervals, much to the dragon’s great delight.

Siegfried sat with his legs crossed, arms folded, and head tilted forward as he quietly listened to their conversation. The two knights—Ainnle and Ardan—sat on either side of him, offering him their hospitality and clumsy attempts at small talk, but he wasn’t so naive to miss the way they squared their shoulders, hands mere inches from drawing their swords if they needed to. It would take more than two knights unable to hide their unease to subdue him, but Siegfried had the feeling that this was more for their peace of mind than Scathacha’s. 

After landing, Irestill’s guardian finally detached her two guards from his side, making quick work in sending them off to do something in a place-that-wasn’t-here. 

“Ainnle, help out with the preparations for the festival. Ardan, give the child a very _ thorough _ tour of the castle, all right? And make sure no one bothers us, I’d like to catch up with my old friend, please.”

“But Lady—”

Scathacha waved her hand again, impatiently this time. “Stop it. If your protector can be bested by a single man, then you’re due for a new protector anyways.”

Djeeta looked at her, even as the knight named Ardan was doing his utmost best to herd her away from the scene as politely as possible. “Protector? Are you—?”

“Yes, yes I am,” Scathacha replied placidly, waving goodbye. “The boy will be happy to answer all and any of your questions. Do take your time to enjoy the castle.”

And with that, Djeeta could only manage a single dubious glance at him before the knight successfully drew her attention to whatever novelties the castle had to offer her.

“Good,” Scathacha said, clapping her hands together when the others were finally out of sight. Without another word, she turned on her heels and Siegfried followed her to a smaller banquet room likely reserved for the former royal family of Irestill. He had to commend her for forgoing the minutiae of his being here two hundred years since they’d last met. 

She took her seat at the table placed in the middle, motioning for Siegfried to sit at the other end while the doors slowly closed behind them both. 

“So,” she began, pouring herself tea from a pot that had been arranged for them before they arrived. “It’s been a while, _ True Dragon Siegfried_. Mortals really have been throwing that title around lately.”

“I would prefer if you called me literally anything else,” Siegfried replied evenly as he accepted the cup Scathacha poured for him. “Thank you.”

“Oh of course, _ Siggy_,” she snickered and he recalled Djeeta’s own reaction. Was it really that strange of a name?

Scathacha casually shrugged. “Well, I suppose I'm just all the more fortunate when not everyone has Naoise's impeccable taste.” She tittered again. 

Siegfried swirled the tea in his cup, watching the tiny leaves lift from the bottom. He remembered Naoise—they hadn’t been particularly close, but they fought together on more than one occasion and shared a few words over dinner when their schedules happened to overlap—fighting techniques, past battles... just ordinary conversation between two knights. Siegfried knew there had been more to him beneath the surface, but there was never a need for him to pry into the affairs of a knight doing his best to right the wrongs of his country.

Scathacha lowered her cup, a rueful smile on her lips as she too recalled the knight. “Hm. Well enough of that I suppose,” she said after a moment. “You must be here for more than just the festival.”

“I’m looking for my greatsword,” he replied. “It was stolen while I was sealed away.”

She smirked at him, shutting her eyes for a moment. “Straight to the point. How refreshing,” she sighed. “Unfortunately nothing comes to mind at the moment, but I’m curious as to who stole this weapon of yours, and why you would still need it after this many years.”

Siegfried sipped from his cup, taking the moment to consider her question. “No name, but they must be long dead by now. My only option is to ask those who are still alive.”

“Fair enough,” Scathacha replied. “A lot of things change in the realm of mortals during two hundred years, but you haven’t told me why you need this particular sword.”

He placed his cup back onto its dish, taking care not to scrape the porcelain. He came here for answers, but the other didn’t seem eager to just hand them over. “Rumor says it’s the only weapon capable of defeating the black dragon on Feendrache once and for all. I tried a regular sword, but it wasn’t enough.”

It was the other’s turn to think over her words as she poured another cup. “The black dragon and a sword tempered by the blood of Fafnir… So that’s how it is.” She turned her eyes on him, scarlet boring into amber. “And why should I help the one who killed that child?”

He couldn’t be surprised when he knew this would come up sooner or later. They both knew the captain and what became of her. “I’ve already read what the history books say about me, that I went mad after the last king of Feendrache died and the captain sacrificed herself to save the kingdom. If you believed any of that for a moment, I reckon I wouldn’t be sharing tea with you right now, making pleasant conversation.”

“Sounds a bit like a fairytale, doesn’t it?” Scathacha murmured while Siegfried wondered what kind of fairytales she’d been reading. “I’ve grown used to mortals rewriting centuries worth of their own records to fit a fleeting agenda. Even so, I’ve been unable to meet with anybody who could tell me what really happened, but here you are, having flit straight into my lap. Now then, please continue.”

He closed his fist, staring at what remained of his tea. Scathacha had no intention of relinquishing the reigns of the conversation to him, and he had no choice but to answer her questions until she was satisfied if he were to glean any answers of his own.

“I killed her, and the blood she spilled sealed me away.”

Scathacha snorted. “You’re doing an awful job of convincing me to help you,” she said. “But I’m not dull. Now is hardly the time to punish yourself for the past if you wish to fix the present, _ whelp_.”

He ignored the epithet. There was no need for her to know, but there was no need for her to help him either. Despite the short time they had known each other, she owed him nothing and he had much more to lose than she did in this battle.

“There was no successor after the king died,” Siegfried said as evenly as he could. The words came to him easier than he expected, so he continued. “His illness was too quick and sudden, and he passed away in the middle of peace negotiations with the other kingdoms. Someone from outside the royal line needed to ascend the throne.

“I had no interest in ruling. I was merely a sword to carry out the will of the kingdom. Even so, the eyes of the people turned on me as councilmen and magistrates fought over an empty throne while our neighbors stirred.”

Scathacha frowned, leaning back in her seat. “If those fighting over the throne saw you as an obstacle, I wonder how they were able to betray the champion of Feendrache without losing the people’s favor.”

Siegfried smiled mirthlessly. “Well, what do you see when you look at me?”

Scathacha grimaced at that, hands closing atop the table. It wasn’t the reaction he expected, but he continued without waiting for her answer. “What remained of the castle feared me for what I was, nor could our neighbors forget what I had done to them during old wars in the name of His Majesty.”

He took a moment as he recalled the events of the past like he were reading from an open book, taken by the same detachment he felt when he was a stranger crossing into a village he once recognized for the first time in two centuries. 

“The wounds I inflicted on our neighbors were too fresh, and the peace negotiations could not continue while I was in the picture. There was a debt that needed to be paid, or rather, a justice that needed to be served.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Yes. We’re no strangers to tales of your deeds, but I stand by my statement.”

Siegfried allowed his attention to stray for just a moment, his gaze tracing the patterns left by the tea leaves on the bottom of his cup. “You’ve made an assumption, True Dragon Deirdre. A knight’s purpose is to serve. If my kingdom asked me to lay down my life for the sake of peace, then I would have.”

She stared at him, eyes slowly widening as realization dawned on her. Curiosity flashed to anger in an instant. “So that child—you… you utter _ fool_!”

Siegfried turned his eyes to the ceiling, the ache in his chest swelling until it filled his throat. There were worse things he deserved to be called. The captain… The very captain who was too honest, too kind, the captain who valued justice above honor and duty doing everything she could to halt the gears of a world she could never come to understand. “They feared her too, a mortal who could bring both primals and the astrals to their knees. But despite everything, she wanted to stand by me even if others would call her a monster for it.”

“You knew that child would rather die than watch you throw away your life,” Scathacha said, her words belying the fury that burned in her eyes.

“Yes,” he replied. “Old enemies wanting me dead was a coincidence while they were worried that so much banked on my loyalty to a dead king—what if I no longer wanted to protect the kingdom, what if I decided to turn my sword on my fellow countrymen? Those were the questions they asked even before they called me a _ true dragon_, wondering who could stop me if that was the path I decided.”

Scathacha didn’t answer, but they both knew who. Even at the time of her death, he would have bet his soul that there was nobody within the sky realm who could challenge her on even ground.

“She asked me to put my life in her hands if I was so willing to give it away,” he said, the memory bringing another empty smile to his face. “If the Tenfold Savior could defeat me in a duel and prove she could keep me in line, then there would be no need for others to fear me. If I defeated her, then my life would be forfeit anyway.” 

Scathacha sighed, her aura dissipating into the air along with her fury. “I have known enough self-flagellating knights in my lifetime to know better, Dragonslayer. You didn’t intend for any of this to happen.”

He had to commend the true dragon, but good intentions didn’t make a blade any duller. “No, they feared her more than they feared me,” he admitted softly, the black dragon’s claws closing around his neck. “It was all a trick, and she died in my arms. The rest is history.”

Scathacha lifted her cup to drink, but thought better of it with the faintest look of disgust on her face. She opted to fold her hands on her lap instead, features softening as she recalled old memories.

“When Naoise tried to kill me, the hatred I felt was so great it threatened to swallow me,” she said after a moment. “I excised that part of myself in order to save my mind and heart. To be controlled by nothing but hate and anger is an existence reserved for the lowest of monsters.”

She stared deeply into him. “You were going to ask me where the black dragon came from. It also goes by the name of _ True Dragon Siegfried_, does it not? Only beasts are unable to recognize themselves in a mirror.”

He said nothing, and Scathacha continued.

“You continue to tell yourself that you would have gladly laid your life down if asked, but it was no longer a simple matter after they took her away from you, was it? No, just as how I wanted to rip those who betrayed me to shreds, you wanted to destroy the very thing you swore to protect. You loved your captain as much as you loved your kingdom, and when your heart couldn’t accept it, you split it in two.”

There was nothing she said that he could deny. He had known all along in his heart what the black dragon was, but he only hoped otherwise—anything to convince himself he would never have to see that look of fear in her eyes again. 

“You asked me what I see when I look at you, Dragonslayer,” she continued, her lip curling. “In truth, the sight of you makes me sick to my stomach while you walk around with that gaping, festering wound.”

He instinctively lifted a hand to his chest and Scathacha laughed despite herself.

“It’s not the kind of wound a mortal could see. How should I describe it? It’s like a man dragging himself along the ground, his innards trailing behind him, or a dragon that’s had its limbs ripped from its body. Are you a dragon, a man, or a monster? I can no longer tell.”

Siegfried met her gaze. “What are you saying,” he asked in a measured voice.

Scathacha shook her head. “Recall my choice of words. I _ excised _ the darkness within my heart, whereas you quite literally ripped yourself in two. The state of your soul hasn’t changed in two centuries, but the other half of you has had all the time to heal, bathing in the blood of mortals.

“You want to defeat the black dragon, you say? The fact you defeated it, or him, once was a fluke for I have no doubt that the next time you fight, your heart will be swallowed whole by that darkness.”

Silence fell between them as Siegfried mulled over her words. Their first battle had been child’s play, but even now he was unsure if he could pull it off again with the way he was now. His bouts of exhaustion struck differently than regular fatigue or sleepiness and if his condition didn’t improve, he might not be so lucky again even with the black dragon’s fang.

“Really. Someone like you laughing at a time like this,” Scathacha said. “Do you not understand your situation?”

Siegfried realized he was smirking. “Forgive my arrogance,” he said, wiping his expression clean. “It’s been a very long time since someone last told me I was seeking a battle I couldn’t win. You’ve treated me to more than I deserve and you have my thanks for it, Scathacha, but I won’t be fighting alone.”  
  


She sighed, tiny shoulders deflating. “You plan to fight alongside that child? Despite the resemblance, she hardly holds a flame to the hero of legend. This world has no more singularities to accomplish the impossible.”

He shook his head. “Maybe you’re right, or maybe you’re not, but it doesn’t matter. She’s already sworn an oath to defeat the black dragon, and I owe her a debt to see it through.”

She scoffed, crossing her arms. “My, I would love to see her face when she finds out the one she has to slay has been walking alongside her this entire time, pretending to be human. As I distantly recall, True Dragon Siegfried, you followed your captain out of a sense of obligation too, did you not? Look where your favors have gotten her.”

Scathacha wasn’t wrong. He anguished over it for years, trapped in that darkness where no one could reach but her.

_ “_ I _want to continue traveling with you even when this is all over.__” _

And yet, in all of her painful honesty and naivety, her words brought him a warmth he went centuries without. There was more than one kind of strength in this world, and he wanted to be there when she found hers. That was all.

The true dragon sighed again, her tea long forgotten. They sat in silence then as Siegfried watched her push the teapot aside, a deep frown set upon her face. “...I won’t allow it,” she finally spoke.

The temperature in the room dropped. 

Her eyes locked with his. “You’ll either lead that child to her death, or a life of misery when you decide to abandon her. I won’t allow you to involve another soul with that curse of yours.”

Siegfried barely moved an inch from his seat, but his words gleamed like the edge of a blade held to her throat. “Do you believe you can stop me?”

“How arrogant,” Scathacha sneered. “Dragonslayer you may be, I have nothing to fear from a mangled abomination of a former human. Chase a dead dream all you like, I would be surprised if she hasn’t forgotten you by now.”

“And what does that mean,” he asked quietly, the image of Ardan hurriedly leading Djeeta away flashing in his mind’s eye.

“Did you think I decided to meet you halfway unprepared, knowing what you’re capable of?”

Her eyes glimmered green with an ancient magic and Siegfried cleared the space between them in an instant, porcelain shattering as an obsidian-black tail cleaved through the table.

Scathacha gazed apathetically up at him as five curved talons pinned her to the bed of splinters that used to be a chair.

“_Give her back._”

He breathed ash and sulfur, his voice deep like the rumble of the earth as pitch-black wings eclipsed the sunlight streaming in. A single beat sent rows of paintings crashing to the floor, his form towering over her while his own reflection glared back at him, glowing amber amidst a deep, deep darkness.

“Laid claim to that child, have you now?”

He snarled but Scathacha refused to yield even as he pressed more weight into his foot, tail raking across the floor as it crushed the wood and porcelain into even finer pieces. It didn’t matter who or what stood before him when it would be a trivial matter to break her ribs, crush her lungs, and tear out her throat—to take more away from him when he’s already lost enough couldn’t warrant enough retribution. He couldn’t let it happen again. Not again. Not again. _ Not again— _

_ “Siegfried.” _

A glimmer. He paused, his grip on her faltering as he slowly came to.

Scathacha’s mask cracked into a self-assured grin, eyes brimming with unfound mirth. “How splendid. I’ve always known there was more to you than you let on.”

Siegfried immediately removed his hand, talons dissolving into ash to reveal his armor underneath. Stumbling over the wreck he made of the room, he pressed both palms to his temples as he blinked the throbbing pain away.

“All that just to see my reaction,” he managed through gritted teeth, wondering how he fell for such a poorly constructed lie. It would be an understatement to say that his more recent slip-ups were a matter of concern for him.

Scathacha smiled despite him threatening her life just moments before. “I’ve been sitting around bored for almost two centuries, can you blame me? Don’t look at me like that—I’ll have you know my idea of entertainment is a bit more tasteful than those of other true dragons out there.”

“I can imagine,” he muttered.

Scathacha dusted her hands off, unfazed. “Hold onto that ardor. The next time you consider throwing your life away, remember the pain you felt just now and the pain that you’ll be passing onto her.”

He grimaced. Perhaps there were better ways to convey a lesson than having him wreck the royal family’s banquet room. He may no longer be a knight of the kingdom, but his instructors in chivalry must be weeping in their graves.

  
  


———————

  
  


Scathacha had rejected his offer in paying for the damages, reminding him that he was without money and that he only made it this far on the goodwill of others. To twist the knife even further, she promised all of their expenses paid for the rest of their stay in Irestill.

“Consider it a favor to a very, very old friend,” she said, her smile outshined by the one on Djeeta’s face.

It was only until they were left to their own devices that Djeeta was able to talk like a normal human being again, lightly punching him on the arm when she found her words.

“I’m just a little upset you know,” she said. “If you want to apologize, maybe I’ll allow it just this once.”

It’s not that she had any shortage of reasons to be upset with him, but he wondered what brought the change of heart. “What do you mean?”

Djeeta clenched her fists, bringing both to her chest in a show of theatrics before gesturing wildly at the velvet flooring and the stone lion’s head that doubled as a coffee table in the room they were given. Siegfried found it gaudy but modesty was not a virtue of most royal legacies.

However, that didn’t seem to be what she meant.

“You’ve been asleep for two hundred years, but you’re _ obviously _ a big deal in this place. Dragonslayer this, Dragonslayer that—” Siegfried wondered what kind of lessons the knight named Ardan put her through during their ‘tour’, but it wasn’t like he could say he never got tired of the epithet either. ”—of course no human being could beat a true dragon _ that _ easily, but I didn’t really give it that much thought at the time! Not to mention, the one and only _ True Dragon Deirdre _ is your old friend?”

“We’re more acquaintances,” he said, deciding not to point out that she didn’t even know who Deirdre was herself before coming here.

“All expenses paid,” she reiterated before spinning on her heels and promptly collapsing on the bed that could fit a great deal more than two people.

Siegfried made his way over and quietly sat next to her. “I’m sorry,” he said.

She held up a hand, and he stared.

“Five.”

“Five?”

“Five candy apples,” she said sullenly. “Then I’ll consider it.”

A small price to pay considering it would all be free anyway. “All right then.”

Djeeta dropped her hand on her belly, folding her hands together as she laid where she fell, staring up at the canopy that covered them both.

She was thinking about something, and for once, Siegfried couldn’t glean a single hint as to what it was. Thanks to the other’s meddling, she was all the more closer to uncovering his lie, but he was fortunate that Scathacha was hardly willing to divulge any more secrets, whether they be hers, or his own.

He paused.

_ Fortunate? Why fortunate? Isn’t that what I owe? _

However, Djeeta didn’t leave him to his thoughts for long when she finally spoke.

“Does Siegfried really need to die?”

Out of all the possibilities he threw together in his head, this was one he did not expect. “What do you mean?”

Djeeta turned her eyes on him, the rest of her body unmoving. “He used to protect Feendrache, didn’t he? Ardan told me about the story behind the festival, that once upon a time, the kingdom betrayed Deirdre and she almost destroyed them for it. In the end, she forgave them and the festival is supposed to remind everyone of their pact. I’ve been thinking about it since.”

For the slightest, damning moment, Siegfried regretted coming here. “Even if that were true, the black dragon abandoned his duty.”

Djeeta pressed her lips together and he picked up on the way her fingers tightened. “I’m… sorry. Here I am saying things like that even after everything you and the people of Feendrache have done for me.”

Compassion was not weakness. But perhaps it was compassion that ended up taking the captain’s life. If this person were to let up, surely the black dragon would devour her too.

“No more apologies,” he said gently. “Right?”

She stuck a tongue out at him. “I guess that’s fair. I’ll let you have one of my candy apples for your troubles.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the infodump :') But thank you all for reading and commenting.


	6. Chapter 6

Not much had changed in the way of the outside world save for the way the people carried themselves, but perhaps that was all the difference that mattered. 

Following the Dragonslayer’s footsteps, Sylph found herself at the heart of the capital where she flitted from stall to stall, peering at the handiwork of Feendrache’s merchants. Not once in her ancient memory had she ever been allowed to roam free, but perhaps the Dragonslayer would agree that there was a silver lining to being a forgotten legend.

It wasn’t long before the traces of ash left by him brought her before a modest stall lined with rows and rows of baked goods. The elderly woman who must’ve been its owner smiled at her with dark stars for eyes, the first mortal to take notice of her since she stepped foot outside of the castle.

“Here you go, little one,” she said, taking one of the rolls to offer to her.

Sylph blinked slowly, tilting her head as she wondered if the woman treated the Dragonslayer and his companion who was the captain-but-not-the-captain with the same hospitality. “I don’t have payment.” With Fafnir gone from this realm, she no longer had the means to give Alma back to the people.

“Children shouldn’t worry about things like that,” the woman replied, tossing the food into her arms.

Sylph caught it, but before she could try and hand it back, the woman’s attention was drawn elsewhere by a young man in armor who spoke to her in urgent, hushed tones. She couldn’t make sense of what either of them were saying, but the look of sorrow was clear as day on her face.

Sylph stepped away then, clutching the woman’s gift close to her chest. She was born from a goodbye, but they were bitter, bitter things, and she had long decided that she had had enough of them after the captain passed. 

Hurrying away to one of the city’s many verandas that overlooked the outer rings of the capital, the primal barely had a minute to herself before another presence interrupted her. Whirling around on her feet, she almost dropped the bread at the sight of the last person she would expect to still be walking around in this day and age.

“Isabella,” she murmured before pausing to reconsider the person who stood before her, brow wrinkling. “No—your soul feels like Isabella’s, yet your scent reminds me more of the child that always followed her, but… that can’t be right either, can it?”

The stranger leered at her, bearing a captain’s armor and pennant. When they spoke, their voice was much deeper than what she remembered of her former master's, but their words left no more room for doubt.

“Dear Sylph. After all this time, I’ve found you again,” Isabella-but-not-Isabella said. She opened her arms, but the primal beast remained rooted to the spot like a rabbit frozen before a wolf.

“Humans don’t come back when they cross over,” she said. “So that must mean you never crossed over then.”

Isabella lowered her arms with a sharp twitch of the lips. “Don’t worry your pretty little head over that. The good-for-nothing promised me her descendants for the sake of taking back what’s mine, and that includes you.”

Sylph took a step back, still clutching the woman’s gift close. She didn’t know much in the way of mortals, but all the years she spent experiencing the world through Lyria’s eyes told her those words were a cruel way to repay that child’s devotion. She didn’t like it.

Isabella seemed to have sensed her defiance as she strode forward, seizing her face and forcing their eyes to meet with all pretenses gone. “Enough of this then. You’ll tell me what that bastard is _ after_.”

Sylph winced as the tips of her gauntlet threatened to break her skin. She pursed her lips together.

Isabella squeezed harder. “_Now_, or should I ask that kind old lady myself?”

There must have been a time when she would have never gone against this person’s wishes, but the warmth of Lyria’s heart and the image of the captain’s back always protecting them made what she had been blind to clear as day.

“...He’s searching for a way to kill the black dragon,” Sylph finally answered and Isabella paused for a moment, seemingly relishing her discomfort before deciding to drop her on the spot.

“Is that so?” She traced her lips, smiling to herself. “Eat your bread, dear. I utterly _ despise _ it when things go to waste.”

  
  


———————

  
  


Day passed into evening smoothly enough during their stroll through the streets of Irestill. Djeeta had watched with awe as a pair of wyverns did their part in hanging colored lights in places too troublesome for a person to reach before she almost bumped into a passing behemoth handing out wreaths of flowers.

The wyverns stopped their work to stare at him as they passed by, gleaming yellow eyes blinking curiously as their scaly heads tilted back and forth. Siegfried lifted a finger to his lips, and the two monsters chirped and tittered before scuttling away to continue their work.

“It’s… so strange,” Djeeta said, reaching up to place a wreath of daisies atop his head.

Siegfried brushed his fingers against the petals, quietly determining that the woven stems would hold together well enough for the night. “You don’t think it suits me?”

Djeeta made a face as she fiddled with her own crown of flowers. “Not that, silly,” she said. “I’m talking about all the monsters mingling with the people in the streets. Didn’t you just see that line of salamanders wearing rainbow parkas? _ Someone _ must’ve sewn those things especially for them.”

“I suppose so,” he replied, nodding. 

Djeeta fell silent all of a sudden, looking off to the side as her brow furrowed. He recognized the look in her eyes as one that searched for an answer that very well may not exist.

“There’s something on your mind.”

She blinked, caught in the act. “I was just thinking… that these monsters look the same as the ones that I’ve fought and killed during my journey.”

He tilted his head at that. He wasn’t too far off the mark, but by now he could read the young woman like an open book. “And that bothers you.”

Djeeta pressed her lips together, one cheek puffing before she let out a tiny sigh. “Of course it does. Up until now, I thought it was natural for us to fight each other, but it doesn't really have to be like that, does it?” She glanced over her shoulder as another procession of monsters passed behind them, their cries indistinguishable from the laughter of the children running throughout the streets. “That behemoth made these flower crowns, Siggy, but they look just like the ones the kids back home would make. You wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”

Siegfried fingered the petals again as he looked away and watched the wyverns from earlier chatter in their raspy voices, hooked talons passing the woven lights from claws to human hands. Perhaps the day he found that he was able to understand the speech of monsters was the day both he and the captain realized there was no going back.

Even though things weren’t as simple as she made them out to be, Djeeta wasn’t wrong to wonder. Always question one’s reason to fight—it was a lesson he did his best to impart on his proteges.

“A testament to Deirdre’s influence,” he finally replied after a moment, a bitterness on his tongue towards his own hypocrisy. “Admire it for what it is, Djeeta, but take it as an exception and not the norm. Anywhere else, a dragon won’t think twice about making you its next meal.”

“I suppose so,” she said, shrugging. A moment passed between them before the corner of her mouth twitched as she glanced back at him.

He blinked, wondering if he had said something funny.

“As a matter of fact, it _ does _ suit you,” she explained after taking another moment to enjoy his confusion. “It’s cute.”

Something within him both ached and softened as he reflexively reached up again, stopping himself short of touching the flowers lest they wilt from the heat of his fingers. “Cute… huh,” he murmured. “I think yours suits you too.”

Djeeta beamed at him. Her brown eyes glimmered beneath the rainbow lights and Siegfried was two hundred years in the past again, walking hand-in-hand with the captain down the glittering beachside roads of Auguste. 

“Don’t force yourself,” she said, glancing away from him despite the smile still on her lips. He must’ve imagined the way her cheeks colored as well, but Djeeta rushed off at the sight of a stall dedicated to selling sweets before he could say anything.

It seemed that she didn’t forget his promise of endless candy apples, but fortunately for the two of them, Djeeta was willing to compromise with a single apple when the logistics of holding and eating _ five _ proved to be more trouble than what it was worth. 

_ “It’s sweet, Siegfried. Take a bite_—_?” Even though she was the one who offered, the captain was at a loss of words when he actually did so. _

_ “It’s sweet,” he confirmed after taking a moment to chew and swallow the treat. _

_ Her surprise melted into an impish grin. “I should really know better by now, huh.” _

“Oh—” Djeeta glanced back at the stall, shoulders drooping at the sight of the crowd gathering around it now that the festival was well on its way. “I totally forgot to get you one. Here, have some of mine, Siggy. It’s sweet—”

Before he could assure her that it was quite alright, Djeeta pushed the apple closer to his face and Siegfried found her determination to impart upon him the wonder that was a candy apple difficult to deny. “Well, alright then—” Arms crossed and eyes shut, he leaned in to take a bite, and Djeeta made sure he was given the optimal ratio of candy to fruit by shoving it into his mouth.

Much of the night passed on just like that, with the other taking him by the hand and running through the throngs of festival-goers in order to beat the lines.

“I want to try them all,” she told him, grinning from ear to ear as she offered him some kind of roasted and skewered sea creature. He obediently took a bite, relishing the way her face lit up when he offered his approval.

Sights set on her next target—fluffy candy that crystalized in one’s mouth—Djeeta continued to lead him through the crowd, his hand clutched tightly in hers lest they be separated in the excitement.

She glanced at him from over her shoulder, and it was in that very moment that he felt like he was dreaming again. Once the night waned, once their fingers inevitably slipped apart as they always did, he would wake in that unending darkness again, a prisoner in his own body—

“What’s this?” Djeeta slowed to a stop, standing on her tiptoes to see over the top of a small crowd gathered around what seemed like a shrine of sorts. A man could be seen dressed in unfamiliar robes, festive enough to wear a hat modeled after the True Dragon Deirdre herself as he handed out folded slips of colored paper to the people and monsters lined up before the shrine.

“They’re fortunes,” a young woman from the crowd explained. “If you get a good one, that means you’ve received the true dragon’s blessing. If you don’t… well, not many people _ actually _ believe in the stuff, but it’s still a fun little tradition.”

That seemed to pique Djeeta’s interest, and when it was their turn at the booth, she made a show of unfolding the slip of paper to read—

“‘Bad Fortune’?” She narrowed her eyes, pulling the paper taut as she brought it to eye level. “That can’t be right.”

“That’s certainly what the paper says,” Siegfried said, rubbing his chin.

Djeeta crumpled the paper in her fist before turning back to the man. “Hey, can I get another one?”

He blinked, but handed over a second fortune as requested.

“Thanks—Huh, again?” She showed the paper to him, which read the same as the one before. “Hey, another please—”

“Really now,” the man sighed, acquiescing all the same when he figured it'd be less trouble to hand her another fortune from the box than convince her to take her bad luck and go.

“Thank you—_ are you serious _ ?” She turned to him, the third fortune meeting the same fate as the two before it. “Three _ bad _ fortunes in a row, what are the chances of that if this isn't rigged?”

A couple nearby squealed as they waved their own slip of paper triumphantly. Djeeta pouted.

“One more,” she told the vendor, “just _ one _ more, please—”

The man scowled. “Don’t let this get in the way of the festival, young lady, but don’t you think that the universe _ might _ be trying to tell you something?”

“Well I’m telling the universe that I won’t be having it,” Djeeta replied, just as defiant. “Please sir, I have a good feeling about this one.”

The other barely made an effort to hide the roll of his eyes. “This is the _ last _ one. There’s a line behind you, you know.”

“Fourth time’s the charm!” She took the paper into her hands, but instead of wrenching it open like the others, she pressed it to her forehead almost as if she were in prayer.

“It’s the last one, so I’m betting my heart, body, and soul on it, Siggy,” she said, eyes still shut.

Siegfried tilted his head to the side, a slight smile settling on his lips. “You really don’t have to do that.” It should go without saying that her heart, body, and soul were worth infinitely more than a piece of paper.

“But I am,” she replied, removing it. “There’s still something we both have to do, so we need all the luck that we can get. Okay, I'm going for it.” 

She unfolded the paper, which read _ Great Fortune_. 

“Oh—” Before he could congratulate her, Djeeta was in the air, pumping her fists at the sky in triumph.

“Yes, _ yes_—” she cried. “Maybe it took us four tries, but I _ told _ you this would be the one.”

It wasn’t a _ maybe_, but her excitement was beyond contagious as she mirrored the couple from before in waving the paper around like a very tiny flag.

“You did,” he said, smiling still. “But it was all you.”

“Debatable,” Djeeta said. “Either way, it’s for the both of us, but…” She trailed off, handing the fruit of her efforts to him.

_ “It’s a good luck charm, Siegfried.” _

He took the paper into his hands, absentmindedly smoothing out the creases as he traced the ink that spelled out _ Great Fortune_. 

Djeeta twiddled her thumbs before him, suddenly unable to meet his eyes. “It’s… maybe I was being silly, but I want you to have it.” She seemed to have more to say, but settled with pursing her lips together instead.

Siegfried folded the paper neatly before tucking it safely away. “It’s not silly,” he murmured before reaching forward to touch the side of her face. She didn’t fade away, and his feet remained planted to the ground even though everything else about him felt ready to blow away in the wind. “Thank you… thank you, Djeeta.”

_ This isn’t a dream_.

Djeeta glanced back at him, frowning slightly as she must’ve felt that something was off. However, she merely took his hand then, weaving their fingers back together. “Let’s go, Siggy. The fireworks should be starting soon.”

He was still in a daze when Djeeta lead him to the top of a hill, the freckled night sky an open canvas before them. There must’ve been others who had the same idea, but in the darkness with the remnants of the festival as their bonfire, it felt like it was just the two of them in this world.

Siegfried couldn’t think of anything else but the hand clutched tightly in his.

“This should do it, right,” she asked, remaining where she stood even after letting go. The slightest breeze combed through her hair, and he caught a glimpse of the nape of her neck. Another ache pulsed within him.

“We shouldn’t miss a thing from here,” he managed to say, his voice an echo within his own head.

Djeeta offered him a fleeting smile before turning back around again. The lights in the distance dimmed as the rest of the kingdom seemed to move in unison, their eyes turned towards the sky when the first flower bloomed amongst the black. Djeeta gasped then, and Siegfried caught the way her eyes reflected the glitter of the fading embers.

“It doesn’t last, but it’s pretty—” she said, stopping short when several more fireworks burst in the sky when the last of the opener faded away.

Everything was just as captivating as he remembered—the burst and crackle, the colors that bloomed and faded. The fireworks of today were the same as the ones two hundred years ago, just as fleeting. Just as short-lived.

_ “Beautiful, isn’t it?” _

When he turned his head, Djeeta remained where she was, staring wide-eyed at the bursting embers as tears welled up in her eyes.

“Djeeta,” he murmured, his voice almost lost amongst the crackle of fireworks.

She turned back to him all the same, standing perfectly still as if she were laying eyes on him for the very first time. What seemed like an eternity stretched between them before another burst and crackle broke the silence, the first of her tears spilling from her eyes.  
  


“Sieg—” She paused, trembling hands rising towards her face as if she had just noticed that she was crying. “Why am I—? I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m—” Her tears finally splashed to the ground as she moved to hide her face, but Siegfried took both of her wrists before she could do so.

“It’s okay.”

He guided her closer as the tears that spilled refused to stop. She shook in his grasp. “I-I—for some reason… for some reason I thought you left for some place far away,” she finally said in a trembling voice. “I’m afraid, and… and I don’t know why, but I’m always afraid that you’ll leave, Siggy—”

She hiccupped apologies as he moved to cup the side of her face, thumbing away the water that continued to flow. 

“I’m sorry, Siggy… _ I’m sorry _—”

He gently tilted her face up. _I’m here, and I’ll always be here_, he wanted to tell her. The last of the fireworks were a distant murmur as his eyes settled on the lips that glistened in the light of the dying embers. Salt, the last traces of something sweet…

Slowly, he leaned in, and that was that.

  
  


———————

  
  


_ “I’ve finally found you.” _

_ The rustle from the bushes caused it to lift its great and weary head. The scent of a young mortal found its way to its nose and it snorted in both indifference and disdain. _

_ After a moment, the creature finally stumbled into view_. _ She was a tiny thing, a fragile-looking creature that would surely crumple beneath the weight of its foot, or turn to ashes once bathed in fire. _

_ “Do you have any idea how long it took me? We’ve never even been to this island, but hey! I guess it all worked out in the end, didn’t it?” _

_ Its lip twitched. _

_ Why have you come? There’s nothing for you here, Captain. _

_ “Don’t look so surprised, Siegfried. I said I’d find you no matter what, right?” _

_ The ground shook as it moved from its spot at the mouth of the cave to stand on all fours. The trees swayed, leaves rustling as great black wings flapped once before settling against the ridges of its back. The human woman craned her head to take it in all its enormity. _

_ Run away, Captain. I’m already gone. _

_ Hand placed over her eyes like a visor, she didn’t shy away even as it stepped closer. _

_ “You’ve certainly grown a little taller.” _

_ It snarled, its tail kicking up a cloud of dust from behind. Even then, she didn’t shirk from it. _

_ “Siegfried.” _

_ It snarled again, louder this time. Why did the thing continue to call it that _ — _ ? _

_ “Let’s go back. The kids keep asking where you’ve gone. Lancelot is worried sick, Vane can barely hold it together, and you know Percival will never let me off the hook for coming back empty-handed. Are we really gonna do this?” _

_ Her hair and clothes whipped about her as the dragon roared, ash and the stench of sulfur filling the air. She remained where she stood, expression perfectly unchanging. _

_ There’s nothing… There’s nothing left. Run away. _

_ It closed its maw, golden eyes rolling in its sockets as it took a closer look at the creature that refused to stop talking and leave. _

_ “I let this happen to you,” she said, a mysterious pain welling up in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Siegfried. If you’re angry, then I understand, but I promised I’d never leave you again and that means I’m not leaving this place without you.” _

_ It lifted a single talon. She was so small, the length of her body hardly any longer than one of its claws. A single twitch of its wrist, and she’d be split in two. _

_ “But I promised this wouldn’t happen either, didn’t I?” She smiled at it then, her eyes seemingly holding back something else. “So let me keep this promise at least, Siegfried.” _

_ It pressed the tip of its claw to her chest, right above where her tiny heart must lay. Without flinching, she took its talon into both hands as she touched her forehead to the arch. No matter how hard it tried or how hard it pushed, it couldn’t move any further than that. What magic or witchcraft did the woman work on it that it couldn’t pierce her heart? _

_ “You must’ve known it was too late,” she murmured, head still bowed to its talon. “That’s why you ran away to protect us, and now here you are without remembering a thing.” _

_ There’s nothing left. _

_ As she finally lifted her head, the smile on her lips trembled, and it realized what she must’ve been holding back were the tears in her eyes. Why did it hurt? Why did its core ache at the mere sight of her, and why couldn’t it move? _

_ “But it’s not over,” she said. “Everything you’ve given to me, I’ve always held it close. I’ve always held it here.” She pressed the talon even closer to her chest. _

_ “Let me give it all back to you. I swear on my heart, body, and soul, that you will never lay a hand on anybody else, so you don’t have to be afraid anymore.” _

_ The wind murmured as the trees rustled again. White ash swirled about them both, and the captain was no longer so small as she clutched his hand to her chest. _

_ “A spell,” she said quietly with another smile. “It’s a good luck charm, Siegfried.” _

_ He crumpled into her without a word and she wrapped her arms around him as they both folded to the ground, his head tucked beneath her chin. She was shaking. _

_ “Someone like you isn’t meant to be alone, you’re no longer a beast,” she whispered, holding him tightly. “And neither am I, so don’t leave me… please don’t leave me alone again, Siegfried.” _

_ That was right. That was his name. _

_ He would murmur her name too if he could, but his tongue was leaden in his mouth after having gone so long without forming human words. He could only clutch her just as tightly in hopes that she too would understand that this would be the last time. _

_ Always. He would always be here. _

  
  



	7. Chapter 7

She had known since the very beginning that when it came down to it, there wasn’t really anything special about her. Like many who came before her, she was born in a small village that just happened to be the birthplace of her namesake. Her parents passed in a skyfaring accident when she was young, so she grew up under the care of the village elder until she was handed down to the rest of the family when she too passed from old age.

It was then that she learned that the time she could spend with those she cared for would eventually meet its end one way or another. Expectedly or unexpectedly.

“This is where we part ways I guess,” her travelling companion had told her, standing just outside the airship that would take him eastward towards the Grim Basin. “Still got your sights set on Feendrache?”

“Yeah,” she had told him then, doing her utmost best not to let the disappointment show on her face. She’d known their time together wouldn’t last—they had both understood that, and yet it felt like she was the only one being left behind.

“Safe journey then.”

“Safe journey to you too. And… thank you, again.”

No, there wasn’t anything special about her. Countless others shared the same name she did, but even the fact of the matter did nothing to lift the weight she carried on her shoulders as she continued chasing the dream that hovered just outside her reach.

“You don’t have to be the strongest in order to help others,” the knight had said to her as he sheathed his blades, kneeling to match her height. She remembered a glimmer of black and red, but the rest of the memory was muddled by the passage of time.

Even so, what she remembered more than his vivid blue eyes were the words she held close to her heart. And so, the chase continued.

“I swear I will defeat the black dragon,” she had told the knights that circled her, fist held to her breast in an oath. “I’ve come here to repay this debt.”

They didn’t accept her at first—of course they couldn’t, but she had left them no choice when best out of three, she defeated their captain to seize the honor of facing the curse of Feendrache, Siegfried.

“Another outsider swoops in to save the kingdom yet again,” one of the vice captains had muttered, but the decision had been made and there was nothing more for them to say.

And yet, Siegfried had sent her tumbling into the fissure despite the sum of all her “strength” and “determination”. Truly… truly, there was nothing special about her.

So why? Why did this man gaze at her as if there was nothing else in the world but the two of them, and why did she lean in to meet him halfway when this too would eventually come to an end?

Lying in bed after waking up in the middle of the night, Djeeta pressed both hands to her face while her cheeks burned brighter than the festival bonfire at the memory that played itself over and over in her head, but as she rolled over, the sight of Siggy slumped on the sofa brought an abrupt end to her embarrassed writhing. She pushed herself upright.

“You said you’d take the bed this time,” Djeeta muttered as she climbed out of said bed, feet toeing for the pair of slippers that had been left for her. “And if you woke up with a crick in your neck, you wouldn’t complain about it either.”

She quietly made her way over as she debated the best way to get him from Point A to Point B without waking him, only to stop when she reached his side.

At first, she thought the moonlight was playing tricks on her, but as she leaned in closer despite all her inhibitions, she realized that those really were tears that flowed from his closed eyes.

“Siggy…?” His eyelids fluttered and his chest continued to slowly rise and fall, but he didn’t stir even as she carefully took a seat beside him, fingers inches from his cheek.

She didn’t think he was one to cry, and she wondered what it was that he dreamed of that could shake even somebody like him. 

“...I know I’m a brat,” she murmured softly. “You don’t have to try and make me feel better just because I cried my eyes out over nothing, but… but I…” She bit her lip then, glancing away before looking back at him.

Siggy didn’t wake even as she patted his face dry with the ends of her sleeve, or when she managed to get him onto her back with some careful maneuvering. This wouldn’t be the first time she’s dragged him to bed, but he wasn’t exactly _ light_, and getting him under the covers was another hurdle on its own.

Even so, her hands still moved of their own accord when she finally got him to where she wanted him to be, fingers gently brushing back his hair as she leaned in closer, eyes passing over his barely-parted lips. They had been just as warm as she had always imagined when Siggy pressed them to hers, and for a fleeting moment, Djeeta was tempted to claim a second taste for herself before she decided to press her forehead to his instead, sighing softly.

_ It’ll be okay… I want to tell you that it’ll be okay, but I’m still trying to figure out how. _

Treasuring the warmth and rhythm of his breathing, she gently combed through his hair as if to try and soothe whatever plagued him. She really did wonder what he dreamed of, what he thought of, and maybe it was only wishful thinking on her part, but perhaps she wasn’t the only one who no longer wanted to be left behind.

  
  


———————

  
  


_ “It’s been a while, child.” _

The moon was an old friend by now as Djeeta found her way through the castle halls to one of the verandas where the dragon Deirdre waited for her. She thought it was her imagination at first, but sure enough it was the other’s voice in her head that managed to coax her from spending the rest of the night at Siggy's side.

“Yeah,” she replied without thinking before she frowned. “Wait, has it really been that long?”

Deirdre let out a soft, but throaty chuckle as her fur-covered tail swept over the tiled floor. _ “Perhaps not, although I’m surprised to see you awake during these hours. Has that man been doing a terrible enough job in keeping you up?” _

Djeeta flushed an even deeper red than before and Deirdre laughed in earnest.

_ “Forgive me! It’s not that I’m above teasing fledglings such as yourself, but I’m speaking more to the worry I see in your eyes, nothing more.” _

“I didn’t say anything,” Djeeta snapped before she reminded herself that she was speaking to the esteemed protector of Alster. Despite her best efforts, there was something about the dragon in her current form that put her at ease like she was talking with an old friend. “I didn’t say I was worried either.”

_ “Hmph, looks like I started this conversation off on the wrong paw,” _ Deirdre said with a twinkle in her scarlet eyes. _ “There’s no shame in worrying over a dear companion, especially one that still finds difficulty confiding in others.” _

That was right—the two of them have known each other for much longer than she. Djeeta yielded to the dragon, but not without a sigh of her own. “Guess it’s obvious then, huh.”

Deirdre shifted herself into a more comfortable position, not unlike an oversized cat staking out its next spot for a nap. _ “I can only attest to what he is like… But what about you?” _

Djeeta frowned again as she met her eyes a second time. “What do you mean?”

_ “I’ve spoken with Ardan,” _ the dragon replied. _ “You intend to complete your mission on Feendrache alongside that man, and yet… you know nothing about him.” _

“That’s not true,” Djeeta blurted without thinking again. “I…” She pressed her lips together as her foundation wavered under Deirdre’s piercing gaze. 

She knew he was kind, that he was strong, that he preferred his meat half-raw but wouldn’t complain if it was prepared any other way. But what else?

_ “You remind me of a dear friend of mine,” _ Deirdre sighed as she finally granted her reprieve by turning her gaze elsewhere. _ “And I’m burdened with a soft spot for determined mortals like you… It’s not my intention to shame, but to protect you in the only way my position allows.” _

Unsure of what else to do, Djeeta mirrored the other as she took a seat on the ground. “From Siegfried?”

The corner of Deirdre’s mouth twitched and she wondered then if dragons were capable of smiling in the same ways as people. _ “You’ve not asked that man to divulge his secrets, and I wonder if it’s because you’re afraid of what you might learn.” _

“That’s—” She clamped her mouth shut, knowing very well by now that she wasn’t doing herself any favors by denying everything the other said. “Well, I’m guessing _ you _ would know the things I don’t.”

She grinned, answering her stray thoughts. _ “You’re not petty enough to fall to my temptations, but I’ll impart upon you this—that man is a demon who will bring you great misfortune. You’ll do your best to abandon him before he abandons you.” _

Djeeta was back on her feet before Deirdre finished her sentence.

“How can you say that?”

She tilted her head as her eyes found their way back to her. _ “Nothing ties you to that kingdom, so no one will fault you for abandoning your mission as long—” _

“_That’s not the problem! _” Her shout pierced the night air. “How can you say that about him when you two are supposed to be friends?”

_ “Friends?” _ The word came out as a low rumble. _ “He is not the one I’m indebted to.” _

“I-I don’t care about that—shouldn’t you know better than me that Siggy… that Siggy would do anything to protect others without asking for a single thing in return?”

Deirdre said nothing as her own fists opened and closed, helpless to contain the anger that threatened to boil over.

Djeeta grit her teeth. “Don’t you know that he’s the kind of person to teach a stupid girl how to dress her own wounds, how to cook her own food when she has nothing else, or to give her the clothes off his back just because she was cold? That he’s the kind of person to follow her even though _ he _ isn’t the one who made the oath to defeat the black dragon?

“Maybe I am afraid,” she continued as her nails opened the skin on her palms. “But not of him, and if he abandons me, then it’ll be because I couldn’t keep him from hating himself.” 

Her words echoed over the empty gardens as Djeeta remained where she stood, doing her best not to break her eyes away from Deirdre’s as her chest heaved from the outburst. If the castle’s inhabitants weren’t awake before, then they certainly were now, but that wasn’t her problem.

A moment passed before the other seemed to finally give. A breeze picked up then like a gentle consolation as she lifted her great head towards the moon.

_ “My dear captain… even now your suffering sees no end.” _

For a moment, Djeeta forgot to be angry. “Your… captain?”

_ “I was wrong,” _ Deirdre sighed. _ “Even I am not so shameless to call it a test of your determination. I was wrong to question you from the start.” _

“Oh…” She sat back down, wondering if she went too far when Deirdre caved in far more easily than she expected, but hearing Siggy be called a _ demon _ of all things touched a nerve she didn’t even know she had. “I’m… I’m sorry for yelling at you.”

_ “Oh, I deserve your ire,” _ the other said. _ “And it’s quite refreshing to be scolded once in a while. Do you think Ardan or Ainnle or any of the other servants have the nerve to raise their voices at me, even when I purposely ‘forget’ that my claws make for poor indoor guests, and that day-old dirt and mud are even more of a hassle to scrub out of white dresses?” _

Djeeta smiled despite herself. “I guess not.”

Deirdre snorted and warm air washed over her. _ “That aside, you have a true dragon’s blessing to defeat the black dragon, Siegfried. I wish you a painless journey, and impart upon you another suggestion.” _

“I won’t abandon him,” she said.

The true dragon grinned again._ “Ah, you’ve made that much clear, child. No, what I mean to suggest is that the pair of you may be behooved to pay the Island of Dragons a visit.” _

Djeeta blinked. She vaguely recalled the name from the maps she glimpsed of this side of the skies. “What’s there?”

_ “The next step in finding this so-called black dragon’s fang. I do vaguely remember chasing a soul burdened with a heavy curse from Alster roughly two hundred years ago—perhaps it was the power to kill a true dragon that frightened me when I forced them to hide on that very island.” _

She was back on her feet again at the promise of another lead. “What did Siggy say about that?”

_ “Oh, I didn’t tell him,” _ Deirdre said, blinking innocently. _ “But that’s not much of a problem, yes? Especially when he has somebody as stubborn as you stuck to his side like a burr.” _

  
  


———————

  
  


It was the sunlight that burned through his eyelids that woke him, and Siegfried realized this made for the second time Djeeta had found a way to get him into bed despite his best efforts.

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and the memories of the previous night came flooding back to him. Teeth sinking into his lips, he bit down as if to curse them for what they’d done.

_ I… really am the worst. _

“Oh, good morning,” came a voice that was most definitely not Djeeta’s. Siegfried squinted through the light streaming in to make out one of the castle maids who must have been tending to the blinds before she greeted him. As she bowed out of politeness, he couldn’t help but think how he would’ve been done for if she had been anybody else with less than savory intentions. “If you’re looking for the Miss, Lady Deirdre requested her assistance in today’s training with the royal guard.”

His lips twitched as he pulled himself out of bed to get started on making himself the least bit presentable. He should’ve known better than to believe that Scathacha’s generosity came without any strings attached, but it would be for the best if they could leave this island without any debts.

As he tossed through his clothing, the maid seemed to have got the hint as she made quick work of whatever business she had here. “Lady Deirdre also requested your presence at the central courtyard nearest to the training grounds. I’ll arrange an escort to show—”

“There’s no need for that,” Siegfried said as he worked on undoing his sleepwear. The woman visibly flushed as she turned away and hurried towards the door. “I remember passing it by on the way over here. Thank you.”

“I will let the Lady know that she will see you shortly then,” the maid said, quickly bowing her head before taking her leave.

Percival would scold him for his poor excuse at tidying himself up, but the previous night’s events made him too restless to linger. When he made his way to the aforementioned courtyard, Scathacha waited for him in her dragon form, hardly batting an eye when he joined her side.

Her attention was elsewhere, eyes fixed further in the distance where Djeeta could be seen sparring with one of the knights while his peers sat on their haunches, enthralled. Three times their swords touched before Siegfried watched her go in for the kill, bringing her opponent to his knees with a sword held to his chin. The others cheered before Ainnle silenced them with a gesture.

_ “I was wrong,” _ Deirdre rumbled as she continued to watch the next match unfold. “_On multiple accounts I was wrong, Dragonslayer. I owe you an apology. _”

He tilted his head at that, arms crossed over his chest. “I didn’t think you would be one to apologize to someone like me.”

_ “Oh please,” _ she snorted. _ “Do I really come off as such a prideful creature? Answer carefully, you whelp.” _

He decided to pass on that as he watched Djeeta secure a second win for herself using the same techniques he taught her during their trip to Irestill. “I take it that you’re not talking about having me make a fool out of myself, are you?”

She snorted again, wings shuffling against her back. _ “Of course not—that was very much planned, and I’ll cherish the memory of you imagining all the ways you’d like to tear my throat out when things get too dull around here. No, I apologize for underestimating the child which is why I will be all the more furious with you if you one day decide to betray her trust.” _

He thought that was fair. He had been scorned for far less. 

Djeeta’s third match ended in a draw against Ardan himself before she finally sat out for a well-deserved break. A gentle breeze seemed to have carried his presence from the courtyard to the training grounds when she turned and noticed the two of them watching her from the distance. She hurriedly turned away from him again, making an effort to hide her face as she pestered Ardan for a rematch.

Siegfried tried not to think about the way his chest ached as he and Deirdre sat in mutual silence, the two of them slowly reaching an understanding in their lack of words. It wasn’t until the knights all took a break for themselves did she finally speak again.

_ “The rumors are true then? True Dragon Fafnir really is gone from this world?” _

“Yes,” Siegfried answered, half to distract himself and half because he was too tired to parse her intentions.

_ “How comforting… to know that even a being such as I will eventually meet her end,” _ Deirdre murmured without any pretense. _ “Say, Dragonslayer, where do you think dragons go when they die?” _

He turned away from her to continue watching the others resume their training. The captain had asked him the same thing a long, long time ago, and he told the dragon the same thing he told her back then.

“I don’t know.”

The other fell silent again as if to mull over his lack of an answer. 

_ “...Naoise lived longer than your average mortal you know… The two of us said our farewells to Heles and Seruel when it was their time, but even then he had no choice but to leave this world as all mortals eventually do.” _

Siegfried said nothing, choosing instead to allow his old acquaintance the chance to air the grief she must have been shouldering alone for the past several years. 

_ “The time to mourn never ends, but even that is a luxury you can say I enjoy during peaceful times like these,” _ she continued as she turned her scarlet gaze on him. _ “Even then, I’ve realized that people find the strangest ways to immortalize themselves. I see Heles’s self-determination in the fireworks that light up the night sky, Seruel’s kindness in the children who play without a care in the world, and of course, I see Naoise in the way my knights carry themselves as they honor their sworn duties. _

_ “When the Singularity died, the skies continued to turn, treading down the very path she had chosen for it. Names, faces… perhaps it is the wind and the grass and the water and the earth that continues to carry her will, Dragonslayer.” _

Siegfried knelt down, unsure of what to make of her words as he reached for the nearest stalk of clover, stopping himself short of plucking it from the ground. “What about you, then? Where do you think we go when we die?”

Deirdre gazed at him again. _ “Surely you’ve realized by now that our hearts suffer through the same joys and agonies that life offers us. Why wouldn’t it be the very same place that all souls eventually find their way to?” _

  
  


———————

  
  


It wasn’t long until their stay on Irestill reached its end. Scathacha had left them with a skyskimmer, assuring them that they could borrow it without Djeeta having to dedicate her time to sparring with her knights who’ve “grown fat and complacent on times of peace”.

_ “The true dragon that resides on that island is not your ally,” Scathacha said to him when she pulled him aside. “Medb will not think twice about revealing your true identity to the child, but the seal that Heles and Seruel placed on the island can only be undone by mortal hands. As powerful as you are even in this state of yours, I cannot afford to lend you my guards to lead into danger.” _

_ “I wouldn’t think to ask,” he told her. “You’ve done far more than enough for me and her.” _

_ Scathacha smiled at him, but there was a distant kind of sadness in her eyes. “I can get used to this side of you. There are some stories that I grow tired of, and I can only hope that you will put an end to this one.” _

The Island of Dragons wasn’t far from Alster, but he still had to remind the Djeeta who took to the pilot’s seat that he was more than ready to cover for her if she were to grow tired at any point during the trip.

“I got it,” she told him, smiling at him from over her shoulder. “I’ve flown alone from Port Breeze to Golonzo, this is nothing!”

He left it at that then, but the sum of his thoughts and Deirdre’s warnings continued to eat at him as he fixated on the back of her head.

_ You have to tell her. One way or another, you will have to tell her who you are. _

“Djeeta.”

The other lifted her chin in acknowledgment without looking back at him again. “Hm?”

_ You can’t keep this from her anymore. _

“What I… what I did to you last night… I’m sorry.”

He wasn’t dense enough to miss the way her hands stiffened over the controls as he cursed himself for the countless time that day. Not only had his senses dulled, but he’d grown cowardly as well. If only the others could see him now.

“I’m… I’m not sure what you mean, Siggy.”

“It’s alright,” he said softly, both grateful that she had her eyes on the sky and not him, and bitter at the fact altogether. “It—” He almost choked on his words as the memory came flooding back to him once again. Beyond Deirdre’s words, beyond the place they needed to reach and the mission they needed to complete, he couldn’t forget the salt of her tears and the traces of sweetness when he had pressed his lips to hers. “It’s best if you think nothing of it.”

“Oh.” Her voice was much fainter, and as she fell quiet, Siegfried wondered if he made another mistake reminding her how he took advantage of her when she was at her most vulnerable.

“If… if that’s what you want me to do,” she finally said after a moment, eyes still fixed on the skies before them.

“I’m sorry.”

Somehow, the other found it within herself to smile at him again, but the weight within his chest remained. “Hey... no more apologies, remember?”

Siegfried could only stare down at his hands before they closed into two armored fists. Even now, Deirdre’s voice echoed in his head.

_ “I’ve spoken to the child, and I’ve spoken to you. It’s clear as day to me that you fear her more than she can ever fear you.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the delay in getting this chapter out, but thank you so much for your patience and following the story so far!
> 
> When I first drafted this story, there were no works in the Djeeta/Siegfried tag, so I was fully prepared to write this for my own satisfaction. The fact that there's even one person who continues to follow the story even now makes me happy beyond belief, and I am eternally grateful for all the support and feedback I've received so far. Thank you again!
> 
> Edit: currently this fic is on a small hiatus, thank you everyone for your patience!


	8. Chapter 8

_ How—? How did I let this happen? _

She claws at the air as best as she can with her mouth and her tongue, anything to fill her lungs as she stumbles over rock and turf and roots alike. Her hands are fixed to Siggy’s wrist and thigh, keeping him in place on her back while his feet drag over the ground as she runs. She stumbles, then catches herself, nearly knocking out a tooth when her knee collides with her face. She thinks blood fills her mouth, but she can’t stop here. 

_ Don’t die. Please don’t die, I’m begging you—! _

  
  


———————

  
  


The trip itself was fine.

The Isle of Dragons was everything she imagined when she saw the dot on the map. It was a smaller island, but not so small that she couldn’t pick it out from the distance, but unfortunately, she was too busy steaming and replaying their conversation from before inside of her head.

She wondered where she went wrong, and if it had been _his_ problem all along. He was the one who kissed her, but if he had a problem with the night they shared, then why didn't he say anything sooner instead of monopolizing her thoughts for the entire day before giving her that stupid apology? She said it was fine at the time, but the more she thought about it, the more she thought that she might actually be pretty angry.

  
But... why did it affect her so badly?  
  


Djeeta took the hatchet, and without prompting, started hacking at the nearest tree, uncaring of how many nights they were actually supposed to spend here on this island. He didn’t say much about what the plan would be after they landed now that she thought about it, nor did he take the initiative to lead the way like he usually did. All around, he'd been acting strangely.

After going over the different versions of the earful she wished she would have given him while they were still in the cockpit of the skyskimmer, Djeeta figured that she'd given him enough of the cold shoulder, especially when they still had a job to do together.

“Siggy,” she called, topping off the third pile of firewood before wiping the sweat from her brow. “Do you think this is good en—” She turned, stopping halfway through her sentence when she realized that she was alone. Anger returned to her anew.

_ Is he… Is he for real? Did he seriously leave me here by myself, in the middle of a strange island, without saying a word, and just when I thought I was doing some good— _

With a deep breathe, she willed herself to calm down while her temper frayed the ends of her nerves. He’d probably be back soon, she told herself. Perhaps he needed a break, or a few minutes just to scout the area and make sure that this would be a safe place to camp for the night… but couldn’t he have mentioned _ something _ before he left?

She turned her attention to their belongings, something to distract her lest she sink back into the imaginary argument she was playing in her head, but before she could begin unpacking, a sudden rustling from the bushes recaptured her attention.

“You! Couldn’t you have said something first? I thought you—”

She almost dropped the hatchet, confusion dotting her face when it wasn’t Siggy who emerged.

_ What are you doing here? _

  
  


———————

  
  


It wasn’t his intention to leave her while she was still upset with him, but time was of the essence. If what he knew of the dragon who resided on this island was true, then Mebd would be the last thing in the sky to accommodate their stay. No, he had to be the one to approach and wring the answers out of her first—they wouldn’t find what they needed in time if they ended up combing the island themselves.

Even so… the fact that Djeeta would not even turn to look at him when he called her name deepened the lines in his face as he traveled further into the forest, closer to where his gut continued to pull him.

_ You’re avoiding her, _ Percival chided. _ Doing your own thing as always so you don’t have to face her. Typical. _

It was for her sake, too. If she learned who he was, _ what _ he was, then neither of them would be able to fulfill their oath.

_ Is that really what you think of her, _ asked a different voice—Lancelot this time. _ Is this really how you would treat the captain? _

He snapped at them, contrary—how many times must he say that she’s not the captain? There was enough on her shoulders as is, and as for him, well—

Siegfried stopped when he reached a clearing, the feeling in his gut flattening into a low hum that pulled him in neither direction, but there was no more need for a guide as he closed the distance between him and the mouth of a cave.

It was closed, or rather, a giant boulder had been placed at the opening, preventing anything larger than a salamander from entering or leaving. On its surface were inscriptions, and when the familiarity of them sunk in, Siegfried turned on his heel and ran back the way he came.

He was a fool for overlooking such an obvious possibility. He’d been so focused on their goal that he didn’t even stop to consider that there might have been somebody else searching for the same thing as him. He should’ve prepared for this outcome, he shouldn’t have left her, he should’ve known—

_ Let me make it in time, please. _

  
  


———————

  
  


“Hey, Djeeta.”

She straightened her back as she turned to face the first grandson of the woman who had taken her in and whom she owed so much to. “It’s… you. What are you doing here?”

Ein offered her a sheepish smile as his eyes glanced from her hands, to her side, and then back over his shoulder before he turned his head back around. “You don’t look very happy to see me.”

She did her best to muster some semblance of a smile. It wasn’t his fault that she happened to be in a bad mood. “It’s not that, but… well, this isn’t exactly what you’d call a good vacation spot, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I do,” he replied, glancing again at her hands. Was he worried about the hatchet she almost dropped on her foot? “I came to deliver a message, actually. Can we sit?”

She nodded, gesturing at one of the logs she fell. She took the seat beside him, shifting a bit awkwardly with nothing else to offer him. “Alright then.”

“Grandmother said you’d be paying Irestill a visit, then I was told you were headed here of all places.”

That answered one question she had. “Well… yes... But you don’t have to be so nervous around me, Ein. Taking on Siegfried in your stead was something _ I _ wanted to do.”

“_That’s not it_—” he rebuffed her so sharply that she almost forgot to hide the look of shock on her face. “I mean, actually… actually, I’m glad you decided to mention it because Grandmother said you… were traveling with somebody else.”

She couldn’t keep herself from frowning. He wasn’t wrong, but she wondered what that had to do with her oath. Was he worried that she wouldn’t be able to see it through? “Yeah… but can’t you get to the point? I still don't know _why_ you're here, and I don't have time to try and figure it out.”

Ein was pale now that she got a good look at him. He glanced over his shoulder for the second time, and before she could impatiently tell him to spit it out, he finally spoke. “That man, you need to get away from him as soon as possible. We have a ship ready and we can take you back to Feendrache, just—”

_ This again? _

“What do you mean _ we_?”

Before the other could answer, they were interrupted by the sound of familiar footsteps.

“Djeeta,” Siggy called her name, hand pressed to his chest as he tried to catch his breath. What in the skies could get him so winded? “Get away from him.”

Before she could even fathom to ask why, something dragged her to her feet, locking her arms behind her back. It was only until a second later did she realize that it was Ein who was holding the cold edge of a blade to her throat. 

Siggy growled. “Drop it, boy. You have no business pointing that at anybody.”

“_Shut up_, don’t you step any closer—” even as he hissed, Djeeta could feel the tremor in his body as he dragged her further back. She bit back a yelp as pain shot up her elbow. “I-I know what you are! Stay there and… and drop your sword.”

Siggy grit his teeth, but did as he was told, kicking the scabbard away from him. "There. Now let her go—"

“E-Ein, what are you doing,” she managed through clenched teeth, standing on her tiptoes to ease the angle of his grip. 

More rustling answered her, and from the corner of her vision, she caught multiple knights emerging from the bushes to surround them from every direction. She glanced back at Siggy in hopes of gleaning an explanation, but his eyes were closed in resignation as two of them seized him by the shoulders and forced him to his knees.

“Wait… wait, what are you all—?”

A familiar voice drew her attention. “You didn’t explain it to her first? Well, I suppose I can’t really hold it against you considering who _interrupted_.” The captain of the White Dragons gestured towards Siggy, giving him a once over before suddenly striking him across the face with the edge of his poleyn. Djeeta cried out, and Ein responded by yanking her back into place.

“It’s been a while, Kingslayer.”

Siggy spat blood. “That title… behind on the times, aren’t you, Isabella?”

Kingslayer? Isabella? She swore the captain’s name was something else, but that aside, how could the two of them recognize each other?

“S-stop…” Djeeta managed through the pain even though she still had no idea why this was happening. “Don’t hurt him. I’ll come back with you and kill Siegfried myself, so please don’t hurt him.”

She was met with a beat of silence before the very captain who had given her his blessing as she set out on her mission broke into laughter. “You? Kill Siegfried? Why should we believe you when you’ve had multiple chances to do it already, but didn’t?”

Confusion lined her face but before she could ask what he meant by that, the captain seized Siggy by his hair and wrenched his head back, cackling still. “You haven’t told her! You honestly. Haven’t. _ Told her_.”

He bared his teeth. “She has nothing to do with this.”

The captain, the one apparently named _ Isabella_, laughed again, yanking his head back and forth and from side to side as if reveling in the fact that he couldn’t pull away. “Only as much as _ you _ do, isn’t that right? It’s been two hundred years and look… neither of you have aged a day.” He spat at him through his helmet and Djeeta struggled again, to no avail. “Disgusting, horrid, greedy, _ despicable_. Neither of you know what it’s like to crawl along the ground, doing whatever you can to stay young in this world so that you could finally, _ finally _ reclaim what should've been yours from the start. No, of course not, not when you have your _ eternal youth _ handed to you on a silver platter, pearls cast before a pair of ungrateful swine—” he kicked him again, ignoring her cries for him to stop.

“No matter. I finally have you where I want.” His voice filled with glee as he turned to face her, Siggy’s hair still held tightly in his grip. “Don’t look away, brat. This man before you is the true body of the black dragon, Siegfried.”

Djeeta stilled, her own eyes meeting amber as she struggled to repeat what he just said in her head. She must’ve heard wrong. Siegfried was a dragon, all of them would have noticed if he was here—

“Didn’t hear me the first time, did you,” he asked, a little too delighted about repeating himself. “Kill the black dragon, you said? He _ is _ the black dragon, you worthless child, and now his blood is mine.”

Before she could say anything, Isabella plunged a dagger into his bared throat, burying it up to its hilt before gripping and dragging it lengthwise. Thick, dark blood fountained from his neck, painting a half-circle of red on the ground as Djeeta screamed, oblivious to the pain threatening to snap her arms at the joints.

“_Stop—!” _ She sobbed, struggling even as she felt something pop and tear. _ “Stop, Stop it—!” _

The captain tossed aside the soiled knife and procured a small dish to replace it, uncaring as the man he held in an iron grip choked on the blood that gushed forth from his gaping mouth and wound. He continued to ignore her screams and sobs and the discomfort of his knights as he held it in place just below the cut he made, but before he could bring it to his lips to drink what had gathered, his prisoner lurched, knocking it from his hands to the ground.

“_Bastard—!” _

Ein’s grip faltered and Djeeta stumbled forward, crying out, but before she could do anything else, the one named Isabella unsheathed the nearest sword, plunging it deep then ripping it straight from his chest.

She stopped. A moment passed, and then another, but the blood that dripped from his blade had not yet touched the ground before she spoke.

“_I said that’s enough.” _

The sword tumbled to the ground, slowly, as if time itself had slowed to a crawl. As she stepped forward, she found her own grasped tightly in her grip—was it the same as the one Siggy gave her? She wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter.

_ “No one will lay another hand on that man.” _

Compelled by the weight of her voice, the two knights who flanked him stumbled back, not even thinking to draw their weapons against her until Isabella hissed at them to stand back up. Did they think to charge her? She wasn’t sure, they were moving too slowly, or maybe she too quickly, but they were on the ground now—weren’t there more of them? Where were they now? Well… that also didn’t matter, just as long as they didn’t touch him.

Isabella wrenched off her helmet, wheat-brown hair plastered to her sweat-soaked skin as she leered up from where Djeeta had knocked her back.

“_Bitch,_” she hissed, utterly crazed now that the mask was off. “I _ knew _ it was you.”

_ “You didn’t know anything,” _ Djeeta replied as fragments of blue shimmered around the hilt of her blade. _ “You were too busy crawling around for your next fix to learn anything worthwhile.” _And with that, she repaid the favor from before and connected her knee to her face. 

A desperate cry forced her to turn around as she parried a blow from Ein. Emboldened, his fellow knights charged her as well, swinging their weapons as if desperate to save the captain they didn't realize wasn't actually their captain.  
  


But again, it didn’t matter. There was only one man she cared about.

She knocked them aside, one after the other. But she couldn’t keep this up when Siggy was bleeding at her feet. Another knight worth more than the others rose to charge at her again, and only when she blocked his attacks for the third time was she finally aware of the pain traveling up her arms. Oh, she pulled something earlier, didn’t she? Not good—she needed to end this quickly—she didn’t want to kill, she _ never _ wanted to kill, but if she didn’t hurry, then _ Siegfried— _

She stumbled back as her strength suddenly left her while her body finally woke to the terrible pain that it was in. Arms seizing, she cried out as her sword tumbled from her grasp, but before her opponent could bring his blade down on her head, a sharp gust of wind sliced through the space between them, sending blades of grass and clumps of dirt alike into the air.

She fell against Siggy from the force alone before she found herself gazing up at a familiar back, raven hair and twin blades of blue gleaming in the sunlight. Suddenly, she felt quite small as if she'd been in this very position before a long, long time ago.

“Take him and run.”

Djeeta didn’t need to be told twice as she shoveled Siggy onto her back. He was heavier, or perhaps exhaustion was finally sinking in after that earlier stunt, but none of that mattered. She had to run, and she did, leaping over a fallen log as she thrust herself deeper into the forest without looking back even as Isabella's indignant scream ripped through the air.

_ How—? How did I let this happen? _

She gasped for breath as her legs refused to slow down even when she stumbled and almost knocked herself out with a knee to the face. However, Siggy was sliding off of her back and her own arms were losing the strength to keep him in place, not to mention his wounds that coated the entirety of her front in blood.

_ Don’t die, please don’t die! I’m begging you— _

Something caught her foot, and she reflexively shielded his head as they both tumbled into a ravine. Gasping, Djeeta righted herself as best she could before dragging herself back to him.

“N-no, please…” she sobbed under her breath as she pressed her hands to the wound at his throat. It had stopped bleeding somehow, but she could feel a steady pulse once she managed to still herself enough to listen. Her relief tore another sob from her lungs, but she had no time to dawdle as she worked on his chest next, applying the medicine Auntie had given to her. She swore Isabella stabbed him deeper than this, deep enough that his bleeding should be more than just a slow trickle, but now wasn't the time for her to think too hard about any miracles. However, before she could examine him any further, a hand shot up and seized her by the wrist while she was locked in place by two glowing, yellow eyes.

Sulfur filled her nostrils as Siggy let out a low growl—a sound no human should be able to make and one that should be unfamiliar if she had never faced that dragon on the mountain.

“_Don’t touch me_,” he snarled, the slits of his pupils pulling into thin lines as he bared at her rows of sharp teeth. She could almost choke on the stench of burning flesh before she realized that it was coming from her as the blood coating her hands sizzled and burned away—

_ “The man before you is the true body of the black dragon, Siegfried.” _

_ “A demon who will bring you great misfortune.” _

_ “I’m not quite sure what I am anymore.” _

_ “Is dragon blood poisonous?” _

_ “Nothing good comes of it, that’s all.” _

“I’ve known,” she cried out, pushing back against him even as his touch seared into her skin. “I’ve always known, Siegfried! I’ve known all along who you really were, but I... I thought that if I faced it, then I wouldn't be able to be by your side anymore.”

In the face of her tears that poured anew from her eyes, he faltered, and she pressed onwards, placing a hand over the talons wrapped around her wrist. It didn't hurt. There was nothing he could do that would hurt her. “Please let me help you... I... I don't want you to go.”

His brow furrowed, head tilting as if her words were beyond his comprehension, but before she could say anything more, his hackles raised in yet another snarl and she whirled around, nearly throwing herself over him when she realized that they weren’t alone.

“Don’t be afraid,” came that soft voice, the same one of her dreams that reminded her of a green and dew-laden childhood. “I’m on your side, as I’ve always been.”

Blue eyes smiled at her, a far cry from the reptilian ones that bore into her soul just moments before. However, before she could gather herself to ask him who he really was, Siegfried lurched from beneath her and he sobered up.

“Siegfried,” the man said sharply. “She’s already accepted you, so stop fighting it.”

As if to protest, he pushed back against her, forcing himself onto his hands and knees as his claws carved deep gashes into the dirt beneath them.

“_Siegfried!” _

“Sh-shut… shut u—gh—” He choked, gurgling as if blood were filling his airways again, but she caught him before he could fall back down, rolling him onto his back to check if his wounds opened from the struggle. However, she didn’t make it very far when he started to convulse, hoarse screams wracking the entirety of his body.

“_Siggy—! _” She tried to grab hold of him, only for his thrashing limbs to knock her back away. The knight caught her and she seized him by the shell of his gauntlets, eyes brimming with tears. “You have to help him! You know what’s happening to him, right? You have to know how to stop it, please—!”

“You mustn’t beg,” he told her, gentle before everything about him steeled as he addressed the howling man again. “Pull yourself together, Siegfried! You can’t heal properly if you continue holding onto this form, you know this!”

He responded by howling louder, back arching off the ground as veins popped from his flesh, skin splitting painfully to reveal black scales underneath. Unable to bear it any longer, Djeeta threw herself past the danger of his claws, doing her utmost best to keep him from thrashing.

“It’s okay—” She clung to him even as he writhed to throw her back off. “It’s okay now, Siegfried! You don’t have to worry about me, you don’t have to fight anymore, you can rest!” 

His chest continued to heave while his cries grew weaker, the pieces of his fractured voice burying themselves in her heart as she hid her face in his chest. The smell of his blood mixed with the stench of sulfur as it coated her cheeks, but she didn’t care how “dangerous” he thought his cursed blood was. She didn’t want to let go of him, and she didn’t want to leave even a single inch of space between them as her fists clung to what remained of his clothes.

“_I love you_,” she whispered against his chest, unable to help the small tremor in her voice. He didn’t need to hide from her anymore, and he never had to, so if only she could get him to understand that, then... “Always… I’ve always…”

_ Always? _

“_...jee...ta…” _ It was a hoarse whisper that she would have missed if she didn’t have an ear pressed to his chest. “... _ don’t… look.” _

She straightened as his body seized up again, reflexively shutting her eyes before she could process his request when ash burst forth from all around her. She craned her dead back even as her eyes remained closed, on her knees with her hands at her side.

“Sig…?” She no longer felt him, not until the earth shook as whatever stood before her collapsed. She opened her eyes then to find her outstretched hand inches from a wall of obsidian before she realized she was looking at the forechest of a giant black dragon, scales larger than the entirety of her hand gleaming with blood. 

Siegfried’s eye rolled in its socket to gaze at her, a narrow slit of gold amongst a sea of deep black. His breath was hot, labored, and when he spoke, or at least when he tried to, his voice perturbed her to her very core like the deep groan of the earth. 

_ “I couldn’t… save… you… Captain.” _

She crawled closer to him so that she could rest both hands atop his maw. “But I’m right here, aren’t I?”

The dragon let out a broken sound closer to the moan of a wounded animal than a growl, but his eye rolled back before closing altogether as everything about him stilled—everything save for the slow rise and fall of his chest.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiatus over and I'm glad to be back. Thank you for your patience everyone!


	9. Chapter 9

_ The captain kneels before him, hands resting between her legs in utter defeat while tears pour endlessly from her eyes, glassy pearls that form and fall and fade into the void in which they rest. _

_ “That day,” she whispers, eyes unblinking. “That day… If only I hadn’t taken you away from here.” _

_ Her head sways back and forth as if to deny her own words as she lifts her hands to her face. “I did this to you, Siegfried. I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” _

_ A shadow passes by, its fingers brushing against the curve of her trembling shoulders as it speaks with Lancelot’s voice. “It’s usually the other way around, isn’t it? You’re so out of place here, and I’m sure your home misses you.” _

_ She sobs at that, fingers drawing angry red lines down the sides of her face. “There’s nowhere else in the sky for me,” she cries. “I did this, I did this, I did this _ — _ ” _

_ He reaches for her. _

_ “I’m sorry, Siegfried. Everyone.” _

_ He means to wipe her tears, but what hovers in place of his hand are talons no lighter than the void itself, five claws that rend the flesh from her bones as she screams in either pain or despair. _

  
  


———————

  
  


Siegfried jolted awake, staked to the ground by the dull pain that flooded his newfound consciousness. He turned his head then, noticing first the reason for the weight on his chest, second the campfire somebody must have lit, and third, the man that watched him with a nigh unreadable expression.

“It’s okay,” he said as if to answer his unspoken anxiety. “You’re back to your usual form, and… well, she hasn’t slept for days.”

Siegfried did his best to work himself into a more agreeable position until he was more or less sitting up with Djeeta resting in his lap. Her steady breaths continued uninterrupted, the flickering campfire casting the shadows beneath her eyes. 

There were many things that needed to be said, that he wanted to say, but never in his life had he been good with words—not now, and not two hundred years ago when he said goodbye to Lancelot for what was supposed to be the last time.

“_Archtraitor _ … is quite the title,” he murmured. “You might have _ Kingslayer _ beat out.”

Lancelot smiled at him, but it was more a tired greeting on his part than anything else. “You figured it out then even after reading what the history books had to say about us. If that’s the case, I didn’t think _ that _ would be the first thing you’d compliment me on.”

It didn’t take much of a detective. Who would guess that the very records that erased his own existence would lie about Lancelot’s alleged murder at the hands of a non-existent _ Archtraitor _? “Then you were the knight who rescued this one’s village and sent her on her journey to Feendrache in the first place.”

“That… was less on purpose,” Lancelot replied, sheepishly tilting his head. “Zinkenstill was where they scattered the captain’s ashes after they had her killed. Once in a while, I left this place to pay my respects and it just so happened that there was something I could do to finally be of use. Maybe it was fate if that’s what ended up bringing her to you.”

Siegfried lowered his gaze until it steadied on Djeeta’s sleeping form. Against his better judgement, he lifted a hand and gently brushed the hair from her face as she looked both so peaceful and exhausted with not a single tear in sight. It was simply a dream, not even a memory, yet the faraway echoes of her cries haunted him as he idly wondered if she was dreaming herself, or if she was too tired for even that.

“Then you were the one she was looking for… And the one Scathacha chased from Irestill.”

Lancelot shifted from his place on the log and a crimson gleam caught his eye. The very object the two of them had been seeking rested against the side of a nearby tree, its edge sharp and polished as if there had been someone to take care of it for all these years. Even in this form, he could sense the curse that made his blood churn with a primal repulsion—the power to kill a dragon... it was no wonder Deirdre wanted no part in sheltering him.

“I could’ve been smarter about that,” the other said. “Exiled from home, and turned away by a former ally, I ended up here, set up my new base of operations, and managed to seal away the stewardess of this island for my own peace of mind. Medb, wasn’t it? Now Isabella too, although I _do_ feel for the knights she strung along for the ride.”

That would explain the familiar inscriptions he saw before he allowed Djeeta to fall into Isabella’s grasp.

Siegfried continued stroking her hair and it wasn’t quite clear if it was for her comfort or his own. He wasn’t even sure what he felt in this very moment, or where the pain that plagued him earlier went. Even now, he wasn’t sure if the person he spoke with really was the Lancelot of his memories. Between the four of them, one who had been much less welcome, it was as if no time had passed at all.

But… Ah.

It was loneliness, wasn’t it?

“You did well, Lancelot.”

It didn’t seem that long ago when he watched like a proud teacher the young man whose growth he witnessed with his own eyes be given the title of _ Vice Captain_. It didn’t seem very long at all, but the man who sat before him now was no longer that bright-eyed youth whose breast harbored the hopes and dreams and ideals befitting of a knight of Feendrache. He couldn’t help but wonder for a single wistful moment what kind of future he dreamed of back then.

“I… _ Siegfried_.” His voice cracked on the beat of his name.

“I’m here,” he said. “You’re not alone anymore.”

Lancelot closed his eyes then, taking a moment to regain himself as best he could before he faced him again. “After His Majesty sent me abroad, I looked forward to telling you and the captain all about the things I learned and experienced. It was always the other way around, and I… I wanted to be the one to repay those favors for once.”

“I know.”

His expression trembled for just a moment, but no more than that. “I wondered if I never should have left. I came back, but His Majesty was dead, the captain was dead, and they told me you went mad and killed her. I… I lost everything that day, Siegfried.”

“I know.”

His fists balled at his sides as his teeth ground together. “For once, I was able to figure it out for myself and I realized that the Feendrache I returned to wasn’t the Feendrache I left behind. Every lord and every senator who conspired against you… I brought them all to justice in the only way I could, but it still wasn’t enough to bring you nor the captain back, and I lost my honor for it.”

He knew, but it wasn’t all for naught. All this time, he had been fighting alone for the sake of this day, hadn’t he? He gave up everything he had left just for the chance that they’d one day meet again, that they’d be able to finally reach a resolution long overdue.

Djeeta shifted in his lap without waking, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he was wrong about this too.

He turned his eyes back on the other. He was never really good with words, but he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice either.

“Thank you, Lancelot. For everything.”

  
  


———————  
  


_"It's not so bad, is it? Being alone once in a while... I think it makes the times we can all be together that much sweeter." A thoughtful pause, a murmur from the wind itself._

_"And besides, we'll come running if it gets to be too much. You'll never be alone for long."_

  
  


———————

  
  


On the first day of recovery, Siggy was still a dragon. 

The man who called himself Lancelot said he probably wouldn’t wake up for a few more days, but his life wasn’t in any danger. It would’ve taken way more to kill a dragon, he said, and for her own sake, Djeeta took his word for it as she set to cleaning his scales.

As for Siegfried himself, he looked no different from the black dragon who sent her plummeting from the top of Feendrache’s mountains, yet his sleeping form filled her with an odd serenity as if she were sharing the peace with an old friend. He would groan here and there, his voice a deep grumble that made the air tickle, but aside from that, he no longer troubled her with his labored breathing from before. A dragon’s regeneration must be something amazing.

While he slept, she couldn’t help but run her hands over his scales—the ones on his back reminded her of slabs of stone, polished and refined, but not as smooth as the ones that lined his belly. His wings were leathery and tattered at the ends. If she saw him flying in the sky from below, she would think they were made of feathers. Even his horns couldn't escape her curiosity as she carefully climbed onto his back under the guise of checking him for any more injuries, but she had the feeling Lancelot wouldn't have tried to stop her either way.

  
  


———————

  
  


On the second day, Siggy was still a _ sleeping _ dragon.

“Still won’t let me help out, huh?” Lancelot asked her, keeping his distance from the other side of the campfire where she told him to stay. “You can’t stay awake forever.”

“I’m not tired,” Djeeta replied snappishly. “I owe you a lot, for what you did here, and what you did for Zinkenstill, but there are way too many things I don’t know about you… or him.”

A subdued expression fell over her features as she gazed back at the dragon. Lancelot told her about Isabella and her quest for youth. Apparently within dragon’s blood lies the secret to eternal life and there would be many out there who would stop at nothing to get their hands on it… if true dragons were creatures that could easily be defeated. She closed her eyes in shame then, her arm throbbing with a dull and distant pain.

  
  


———————

  
  


On the third day, Siggy looked more like a human being again.

The sudden change in his condition sent her running in circles with a wet rag until Lancelot assured her it meant progress—this was Siegfried’s preferred form after all, and in his sleep, he started calling for “that” person again, his fingers twitching as she clutched them to her chest.

“The captain is someone he loves a lot, huh?” Her voice was quiet and barely heard from over the crackle of the campfire, but Lancelot turned his attention from polishing his swords to her all the same. She had grown to appreciate that about him.

“_Was_,” he gently corrected her. “But you’re probably right in that she’s still someone he can’t let go of, no matter how hard he tries.”

She turned to him. “Did you love her too?”

That took him by surprise as he stopped his polishing altogether to mull over the question. “Many people did, and in the end… that was probably what broke her.”

  
  


———————

  
  


On the fourth day, she woke to gentle fingers combing through her hair.

“Will you tell her?” It was Lancelot who spoke, and the question stilled the hand. She had half a mind to ask him to continue, but something told her that she probably wasn’t supposed to be awake just yet.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Siegfried replied as Djeeta tried to figure _ that _ out for herself, but waking up halfway through a conversation _ about _ her but _ without _ her made it far from manageable. Nonetheless, her curiosity kept her listening. “But no, and neither will you.”

There was a note of urgency in Lancelot’s voice, a hint of a protest, but nothing more than that as if Siegfried was somebody he couldn’t be completely contrary with. “Do you really think it's a coincidence? That she has the captain’s face and name, that she wants to save a kingdom that has nothing to do with her, that nothing strange happened when she rescued you from Isabella’s knights?”

“_It doesn’t matter_,” Siegfried said sharply while she held her breath. She could feel the tension in his core, and she wondered how long it would take before her racing heart would give her away— “Whether she _ is _ or _ isn’t _ doesn’t matter.”

“... But why? Tell me that, at least.”

His core softened and the stroking resumed, albeit distracted in its rhythm. Siegfried took his time mulling over his answer while her brain shifted into overdrive trying to figure out what exactly they were half-arguing about, and what she was supposed to make of what Lancelot just said. 

“The captain never got to live a normal life, not even after her journey was supposed to end,” he said. “If this child is her, then all the more reason to let her live freely… just this once. That’s all I ask.”

“No.”

Siegfried stiffened immediately because it wasn’t Lancelot who answered him, but her. With no use hiding it any longer, she forced herself up, swaying on the spot and almost collapsing against his chest before she dug her palms into the ground to prop herself in place.

“How… How many times do I have to tell you?” She met his widened amber with her own determination as she felt her strength slowly return to her. “I don’t _ care _ who you think I am or not, but shouldn’t I be the one to choose how I live my life?”

Siegfried, to his own merit, gathered himself quickly. “Djeeta, that’s precisely _ why_—”

“It’s not.” She didn’t sound as angry this time. “I can’t force you to be with me, especially if my face causes you pain, but if you being here by my side is your idea of redeeming yourself for what happened two hundred years ago to the Tenfold Savior, shouldn’t I get some sort of say?”

He stared at her with nothing but the crackle of burning wood to punctuate the silence before he finally resigned himself, brow softening and shoulders lowering. Luckily for her, he seemed to understand quickly that there were many things he couldn’t take back. “You got me… and what will you have me do?”

Djeeta glanced at Lancelot who watched them quietly with a certain softness in his eyes as if he’d known something like this would happen from the start. She looked back at him before she took one of his hands and pressed his knuckles to her forehead. Like before, his hands were warm, except now she knew that it wasn't such a farfetched idea that fire burned gently in his veins. The Siegfried before her wasn't the one she was meant to defeat, and she wanted him to understand that too.

“Stay by my side when we defeat the black dragon together, and stay by my side afterwards. Let me learn the things I don’t know about the man named _ Siegfried_, and let that same person learn who I am as _ Djeeta _ too.”

She paused as she lowered his hand, her lips brushing just the slightest bit across his knuckles as she did so. When she lifted her gaze to meet his once more, an old and nostalgic flame seemed to alight within her breast. Hadn’t they done this same dance once, or many times before?

Siegfried seemed to be at a loss for words, and she found it a little funny despite everything that even somebody like him could be _ flustered_. “I—is that it?”

She grinned and in that moment, it felt like ages since she last smiled. “Glad to know you don’t think I’m being unreasonable. You better not complain about this later, you hear? We even have a witness this time.”

A small smile worked its way onto his lips. “I would never think to do so.”

“Good... Good night then,” she said before allowing her exhaustion to overtake her again as she collapsed back into his lap. There were many more things that they needed to talk about, that she _wanted_ to talk about, but all of it could wait. It was an ongoing effort, keeping this man beside her, and for now, she found enough comfort in knowing that he wouldn't be drifting off anywhere anytime soon. Her smile lingered as she glanced back at Lancelot. “And good night to you too. Please don’t fight anymore—I’m really, really tired, you see.”

“Told you,” Lancelot quipped, and with that, she closed her eyes.


End file.
